


how to prove that your peppy summer camp counselor is actually a demon from hell, by dipper pines

by dumbkili



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: CONSISTENT WITH TALE OF TWO STANS, Human Bill Cipher, It's a summer camp au!!!!!!, NOT a billdip fic, NOT a wendy/dip dop fic, Summer Camp AU!, all the kids are campers, and only for a little while, bill and the wendy gang are counselors, i did it i did it im sending myself to hell, its just one sided, poor dipper with your conspiracies, stan owns the camp and can't for the life of him remember how his life got like this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3604443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbkili/pseuds/dumbkili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's summer! And instead of actually, you know, going out and having fun like normal twelve year olds, Dipper and Mabel are stuck at Stan Pines’ Amazing Summer Camp of Mystery, where there's a fake monster hunt every week, a really pretty red haired counselor with exactly ZERO interest in dating a twelve year old, and meat that comes from unidentifiable animals. Oh, yeah, and Dipper's counselor? Totally a demon from hell. He's just gotta get proof.</p><p>It's gonna be a weird summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Triangle Puns and Yellow T-Shirts

**Author's Note:**

> Okay okay okay guys i KNOW i just posted a fic the other day (it's called What a Gift and it's Reverse Pines please check it out if you haven't already), but like. Summer camp au!! It came to me in a dream. Wait. No. That sounds like I'm Stephanie Mayer or something. That never happened. There was no dream. I don't dream, actually. Okay. Here we go.

If there was one thing Dipper Pines was sure of, it was that when your parents stuff you on a bus with your twin sister to go to camp for the entire summer, the result will not be anything good. Especially if that summer camp is run by your crazy great-uncle, and is in the middle of the woods in Oregon.

 

“Honestly,” said Dipper, staring out the bus window at the passing trees, rocks, and occasional hint of civilization, “Who builds a summer camp in _Oregon?”_ He adjusted the rim of the blue and white baseball cap his great-uncle had shipped him on his birthday, his nervousness escaping him in the form of fidgeting. He never did well in camps.

 

Mabel shrugged. “Grunkle Stan does, I guess.” She looked back down at the seat cushion she’d pulled up. “Hey, does this piece of gum look more like George Bush Senior, or George Bush Junior?”

 

Dipper squinted at it for a second, considering. “Neither. Clinton.”

 

As Mabel made a sound of realization, Dipper looked back out the bus window. They were pretty close to the camp already, and now the dirt road outside was lined with a tall wire fence and variously sized “Private Property” signs. _Ugh, could Grunkle Stan make this look any more like a prison?_ Dipper thought to himself. He sighed as another sign rolled by, this one in bright reds and yellows with a picture of Stan’s grinning face and the words, “GRAVITY FALLS MYSTERY SUMMER CAMP, 1 MILE”.

 

Trying to distract himself from the horror his life was about to become, he turned his attention to the interior of the bus. He and Mabel weren’t the only kids on it (although there weren’t that many others, all told). There was a pair of girls a couple rows ahead. One of them was large, taller than Dipper, and she thoroughly engrossed in some kind of book. The other one was tiny and speaking rapid Korean into a bright pink cell phone. As Dipper watched, she pulled it away from her ear with a groan.

 

“No service!” she complained, and the other girl made a vague, distracted noise of sympathy.

 

A row ahead of the girls was a pack of red headed boys in various shapes and sizes. They all appeared to be brothers, and were having some sort of wrestling death match, complete with pile drives and body slams. Dipper was suddenly very glad that he and Mabel had snagged the row furthest towards the back.

 

The rest of the bus was populated with a few other kids, mostly young, all pretty much silent. A few were sniffling and hugging their backpacks tight to their chests. There were about ten or twelve kids on the bus in total, but it still wasn’t even half filled. Grunkle Stan’s summer camp might have been slightly cheaper than its competitors, but its poor utilities, strangely cooked food, and untrained staff left it far from popular.

 

Before Dipper even knew what was happening, the bus was rolling to a stop in front of a big wooden gate and opening its doors. The other kids sighed and began to gather their things and get off. Mabel replaced the seat cushion, and Dipper stood up and slung his backpack onto his shoulders. They were sitting in the way back, so they were the last ones off. As they passed the bus driver, a big guy with a baseball hat and a nametag that just said ‘Soos’, they both gave him a polite, “Thanks.” They jumped off the bus, little clouds of dust rising up from the road. They had to tug their suitcases down after them, making more dust float up into the still summer air. Dipper coughed.

 

“Hey, wait!” the driver called after them. “You’re Mr. Pines’ kids, right? He said to look out for a set of twins.”

 

“We're not his kids. He’s our great-uncle,” Dipper corrected, still clearing his throat. “I’m Dipper and this is-”

 

“Mabel!” Mabel interjected, with appropriate jazz hand accompaniment.

 

“Ha, sorry dudes,” the guy said, rubbing the back of his head. “Nice to meet you, I’m Soos. Driver, handiman, custodian, and pretty much everything else.”

 

Mabel and Dipper nodded politely. Behind them, Dipper could hear the big gate swing open, and the rest of the kids begin to trudge inside, herded by a few counselors.

 

“Anyway, Mr. Pines said to tell you two dudes to go see him after you’re all settled in. See ya around!” Soos said, closing the bus doors. The twins backed up a little bit as the bus drove off, but Dipper still managed to choke on dust again. As he was coughing, somebody came up behind the two of them and clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. Mabel jumped. Dipper absolutely did _not_ scream.

 

“Hey, c’mon, let’s move it along, kids. Everyone else is already inside.”

 

Dipper looked up, a little embarrassed (not from screaming, though, because he did _not_ scream), and immediately thought, _Whoa._

 

The bored looking red headed counselor that was currently shepherding them inside the camp proper was _gorgeous._ And probably around sixteen. And _beautiful._ And completely too old for him and completely out of his league. But really, _really_ pretty. And totally unattainable. He sighed internally for what felt like the hundredth time in the past five minutes. _Great. An unrequited crush. As if I needed another reason why this summer is gonna suck._

 

“I’m Wendy,” said the counselor. “Welcome to Stan Pines’ Amazing Summer Camp of Mystery, I’m sure you’ll love it here, yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea.” Her voice was the complete monotone of someone reading off lines from an unfamiliar script. Dipper noticed absently that she was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt advertising the camp and was actually _making it work_. “What are your names?”

 

“Dipper and Mabel Pines,” Dipper supplied quickly, glaring at Mabel to make sure she didn’t interrupt like last time. Wendy looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. Instantly, he felt self conscious. Had he answered too fast? Was his voice too squeaky? Did she not like his name? He could feel his palms beginning to get damp and sweaty.

 

However, after a slight pause all Wendy said was, “Pines? You’re the Pines twins?”

 

“Yup! That’s us!” said Mabel from Wendy’s other side. “Stan’s our great uncle.”

 

Wendy laughed a little at her enthusiasm. “Well, since you have connections and all, you can tell Stan that he may be a 'great' uncle but he’s a terrible boss. Tell him Wendy said so.”

 

Mabel gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth. “We can’t tell him that!”

 

Wendy shrugged, grinning. “It’s nothing I haven’t said to him before.”

 

Dipper hitched his heavy backpack up higher and got a better grip on his suitcase. “Don’t you- don’t you like working here?”

 

Wendy shrugged, leading them along a small footpath through a copse of pines trees. The sounds of the larger group could be heard faintly up ahead. “It’s okay. It’s something to do, I guess.” She dug into the pocket of her jeans and produced a dirty, folded up slip of paper. “It was either this or lumberjack camp, and at least this way I get to make some money. And boss my brothers around.” She unfolded the paper and scanned the list of names, muttering under her breath. “Dipper and Mabel… Dipper… and…. Mabel… Ugh, where are you guys?”

 

“Oooh is that what cabin we’re in?” asked Mabel excitedly. “We’re in the same one, right?”

 

Wendy clicked her tongue. “‘Fraid not, kiddo. Boys and girls are separate, no exceptions for twins.” Mabel groaned in disappointment, but Dipper had seen it coming.

 

“Okay,” Wendy continued as they walked. The path had led them to a more open area, but they were still surrounded by trees on all sides. Through the underbrush was the occasional cabin or outhouse, all pretty small. “So Mabel, looks like you’re in Cabin C. That’s good, that’s my cabin. The other girls in there are Candy, Grenda, and… oooh….” She frowned at the list. “Looks like we’ve got Pacifica, too… well, you can’t win ‘em all, I guess.”

 

“Who’s Pacifica?” Mabel asked curiously.

 

“She’s, like, the Queen Bee camper around here,” Wendy explained. “She thinks she’s hot stuff ‘cuz her family’s rich or whatever… Honestly it beats me why she even comes to this camp at all. She is _literally_ the worst.”

 

Mabel scoffed. “I’m sure that’s not true! Everybody’s got SOMEthing about them that’s good!” A teenaged girl about Wendy’s age turned onto the path a few yards ahead of them, walking in the opposite direction. “I bet Pacifica is lovely!” Mabel continued.

 

Wendy shook her head. “Hey, Tambry!” she called. The girl walking towards them looked up from the ground. “Pacifica Northwest.”

 

“The worst,” said Tambry without missing a beat. She continued on, passing them by, and Wendy gave Mabel a look that said, _“See?”_

 

“Was she on the bus?” Dipper asked. “I didn’t notice anybody that seemed… Queen Bee-like.”

 

Wendy laughed. “What, and soil her Armani dress by fraternizing with the masses? Not on your life. She’ll probably be around in an hour or so in her family’s flying limo or whatever.” She looked back at the list. “Okay… Dipper… Dipper… Dip...per… Oooooh! You’re in Cabin 3! Wait. _You’re in Cabin 3!”_ She exclaimed, stopping dead in her tracks. Dipper and Mabel stopped too, looking at her in confusion. “Ooooh my god, I can’t believe it. You’re in Cabin 3.”

 

“What’s so special about Cabin 3?” asked Dipper, frowning. “Is there, like… a ghost in it or something? Raccoons? Bats? Because I can handle bats. I’m, uh,”- he puffed out his chest a little- “I’m pretty good with bats.”

 

Mabel frowned. “No, you’re not. You got an infection from a bat once, remember-” Dipper cut her off by slapping a hand over her mouth. She licked it. He cried out in disgust and jumped back, wiping the contaminated hand on his vest.

 

“You don’t understand,” said Wendy, bending down and putting both hands on Dipper’s shoulders. “Dude. Dude. _That’s Bill’s cabin_.”

 

Dipper blinked. She was very close to his face. He coughed uncomfortably. “Am I- am I supposed to know who that is?”

 

Wendy stepped back a little. “Um, he’s only _the weirdest_ counselor this camp has _ever_ had!” A dark skinned guy with tattoos came walking up the path, whistling. Wendy snapped her fingers at him impatiently. “Nate, Nate. Bill Cipher.”

 

“Um, did you mean: the _weirdest_ counselor I have _ever_ seen!” replied Nate without stopping. Wendy pointed at Nate’s retreating figure for emphasis.

 

“That guy is _crazy!_ I mean, the tooth thing on its own was cause for concern but then the _Gideon Thing_...” she said, beginning to walk forward again. Dipper and Mabel scrambled to keep up, exchanging confused glances. “Seriously, Dipper, you gotta tell me about the stuff he does in the cabin. I mean, I’ve always been missing out on, like, half the stuff he gets up to! You gotta be my spy.”

 

Dipper frowned, tugging his suitcase over a particularly big root. “Um, no offense, uh, Wendy, but I don’t even know who this guy is-”

 

“Well, you’re about to,” Wendy interrupted, stopping in front of a large tree. “Welcome to Cabin 3.”

 

The twins looked at the tree. It appeared to be a normal tree, and did not give the impression of deciding to be a cabin anytime soon. They looked back at Wendy. They looked at the other. _Are we sure she actually even works here?_ Mabel’s face seemed to say. _I have no idea what’s going on,_ Dipper’s replied. They looked back at the tree. It stubbornly remained a tree.

 

Mabel coughed. “Um… Wendy? Where’s the cabin?”

 

Wendy sighed. “Here’s your first lesson on Bill Cipher.” She reached out a hand and pushed on the trunk of the tree. It swung open, revealing itself to be a wooden door. On closer inspection, the twins realized that the entire cabin had been painted hyper realistically to look like a normal patch of forest. “He likes to hide things,” finished Wendy. She stepped through the door and into the cabin. The twins followed suit, gaping.

 

It was smaller inside than they had expected- about nine by eight feet- and it was pretty cluttered. The long sides were big enough for one bunk bed to squeeze in, each end nearly touching the front and back of the cabin, and the back wall was big enough for one as well, arranged horizontally. If you took the roof of the cabin off and looked inside from above, the beds would form a rough U-shape, with an empty space of floor in the center of the cabin.

 

The other boys in the cabin appeared to have already arrived, dumped their stuff, and left. Plaid bedsheets and wrestling posters had been thrown hastily onto three of the beds. Only the bed on the right side of the door walking in was fully made and decorated. Dipper’s eyes were drawn to it because of the lumpy bright yellow comforter and plethora of strange posters taped to the walls around it.

 

 _WHAT DID THE TRIANGLE SAY TO THE CIRCLE?_ asked one. Below that line was a picture of a red triangle with a singular eye, and a blue circle. Closer inspection revealed that the eye had been drawn on in Sharpie, and was not part of the original poster. _YOU’RE POINTLESS!_ , said the little speech bubble coming from the triangle.

 

Another one displayed a light blue triangle covered in icicles (also with a drawn on eye) below the words, _WHAT KIND OF TRIANGLE IS THE COLDEST? AN ICE-OCELES!_ Dipper raised an eyebrow at it, unimpressed.

 

Wendy gave a low whistle, looking around at the mess on the three unmade beds. “Looks like you got my brothers. Ha! Good luck with those guys.”

 

“Thanks, that’s… really reassuring,” said Dipper dryly. He dumped his backpack on one of the last two empty beds, a lower bunk by the door. “Um, so… where’s this Bill guy, anyway?”

 

“I’m right here, kid!” said a bright voice from behind him. The three of them jumped and whipped around, looking at the guy that had suddenly appeared on what Dipper had already classified as the ‘Yellow Triangle Bed’.

 

Wendy pressed a hand to her chest. “Jeez, Bill, stop doing that! It’s creepy!”

 

Dipper could feel his own heart racing in his chest. “Wha- Where did you- where did you _come from?!”_

 

Mabel was simply looking on, her mouth open.

 

“Hah, sorry, Red!” laughed Bill. He had a weird, high pitched voice. “I thought you’d be used to it by now.” He got up from the bed, unfolding himself bit by bit. For someone who was closer to Dipper’s height than Wendy’s, he took up a lot of space. Not exactly physically, per say, but rather in the sense that the way he spoke, the way he moved, seemed to fill the room just by his being in it. It was weird. Mabel moved closer to Dipper unconsciously, their arms just brushing.

 

Bill looked at the twins with interest, the bright yellow of his counselor shirt standing out against his dark skin. He was a few years older than Wendy, maybe seventeen or eighteen. His hair was curly and bleached blonde, and he only had one good eye, which appeared to be a tawny yellowish-brown color. The other was a twisted mass of scar tissue. All in all, Dipper thought that there was a bit too much yellow on Bill’s person.

 

“So who’re these little insects?” Bill asked, fixing first Mabel and then Dipper with a one-eyed stare. Dipper glanced around at the floor, Wendy, the ceiling, anywhere but Bill. He was starting to feel intensely uncomfortable.

 

“Oh, uh… this is Mabel, and this is Dipper,” answered Wendy awkwardly, gesturing to each twin in turn. Bill blinked.

 

“I completely missed what you just said," said Bill, deadpan.

 

Wendy sighed, apparently used to Bill’s attention span. “I said-”

 

“No, no, don’t repeat yourself. I’m sure I can think up better names for them anyway!” said Bill, waving a hand at her vaguely. Wendy groaned.

 

“No, Bill, come on, don’t do this-”

 

“Let me think, Red!” Bill insisted, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a black eyepatch. Predictably, it had a golden triangle stitched into it. He snapped it over his mutilated eye and surveyed the twins for a few seconds more.

 

“Pine Tree and Shooting Star. Got it.” Bill nodded once, sharply, and pulled open the door to the cabin. Mabel looked down at the multicolored star on her sweater, and Dipper's hand flew up to cover the blue tree on his hat. “See you at dinner, insects!” Bill called, and then he was gone, vanishing into the labyrinth of pathways and trails that wound through the woods.

 

There was about a minute of stunned silence. Wendy let out a long breath.

 

“So, yeah,” she said, as the twins stood frozen, looking out the door. “That was Bill.”

  
Dipper sighed. It was going to be a long summer.


	2. Raccoon Meat? Maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan lays down some ground rules and Dipper forms a hypothesis.

They stayed in the cabin for a few more minutes, Wendy and Mabel awkwardly silent as Dipper unpacked his things as quickly as he could. Then they headed out again, this time to find Mabel’s cabin. Dipper hoped that it was a normal color; He couldn’t pick out Cabin 3 when the door was shut even though he knew where it was, and out of the two of them he wanted at least one to be able to find their cabin.

 

It turned out to be completely normal on the outside, even if the inside contained an abnormal amount of pink.

 

While Mabel began to set up her bed (a top bunk by the door, the same bed Dipper had chosen, if not the same level), Dipper and Wendy went back to talking about Bill.

 

“So Stan just _let_ him paint the cabin?” Dipper asked incredulously.

 

“Yup,” said Wendy. “Stan doesn’t care much what the counselors do, as long as we’re doing something. Plus, Bill’s been around here for a long time. And I mean a _long_ time.”

 

Mabel tacked up yet another poster Sev’ral Timez to the wall above her bed. “And he did all that by himself? He’s such a good artist!”

 

Wendy sat down on her own bed, the lower bunk opposite Mabel’s. “Yeah, dude, I have no idea how he did that. Literally all I’ve seen the guy draw is triangles. And eyes.” She paused for a second, thinking. “And triangles _with_ eyes. He’s got range.” She flopped backwards onto the bed and lay there, perpendicular to its length. “I dunno. The guy’s weird.”

 

“Uh, bro bro?” said Mabel. “A little help?”

 

Dipper sighed and handed her the stuffed animal she had been futilely trying to reach. “Hey, Wendy?”

 

“Yeah dude?” she said, popping her head up.

 

“How long has Bill worked here? Just out of curiosity.”

 

Wendy’s head flopped back down, out of view. Mabel gestured impatiently for another stuffed animal, and Dipper handed it up to her as Wendy thought.

 

“Uhhhhh….That’s a tough one,” admitted Wendy after a minute. “He’s just… always been here. Cabin 3 has always looked like that, ever since he painted it. It’s just how it’s always been, I guess.”

 

Dipper frowned. “C’mon, that guy can’t be any older than eighteen. And haven’t you been going to this camp for, like, ever?” He handed a pillow up to Mabel. “You guys must have been campers together at _some_ point.”

 

There was a rustling sound from Wendy’s bed. Dipper took that to mean she was shaking her head.

 

“Nope. He’s always been a counselor. I remember ‘cuz when I was like, ten, he….” She trailed off. “Never mind. I just know he’s been a counselor for a while.”

 

“Aaaaand… Done!” cried Mabel, smoothing down the last of her covers. She hopped down off the ladder of the bed. “Now, what’s all this about Bill?”

 

Wendy sat up, careful not to hit her head against the top bunk. “We were-” She was interrupted by a loud noise from outside, a blaring mix of a fog horn and an air raid siren. The twins covered their hands and looked around in confusion, but Wendy just sighed and waited for the noise to stop (which it did, after about a minute and a half).

 

“What was that?!” the twins demanded in unison, slowly uncovering their ears.

 

“Ugh. That’s the dinner bell,” said Wendy, getting off the bed.

 

_“Bell?!_ ” repeated Mabel. “In what world was _that_ a _bell?”_

 

“In Stan Pines’ world,” answered Wendy, opening the door. “Count yourselves lucky; I remember when he used to just walk around camp and ‘tell’ people individually. What a way to wake up for breakfast, honestly. Stanford Pines standing outside your cabin blasting an air horn.”

 

The twins laughed at the image and followed Wendy out the door. The path outside quickly became filled with kids and counselors heading towards the dining hall. It was more people than Dipper had expected, and he told Wendy so.

 

“Oh, you guys were on the last bus of the day. It’s always the least full,” she explained. She looked around at the kids surrounding them. “We got maybe 90, 100 kids this summer? I dunno. It’s not too bad.” She suddenly spotted somebody in the crowd. “Yo, Lee- hey, you guys are fine on your own for a while, right? I’m gonna go talk to Lee.” The twins nodded.

 

“See ya!” said Mabel, and Wendy ran off, weaving through the swarm of kids eager to get their dinner. Dipper and Mabel followed the crowd for a while. Mabel had somehow located and was befriending two of her cabinmates, Candy and Grenda, and Dipper was turning over the mystery of Bill in his mind. It was an interesting puzzle. A guy with one eye and an obsession with triangles who’d perfectly camouflaged an entire building and who’d apparently been around forever. He was so distracted that he nearly tripped over the first step that led up to the dining hall, a long raised building with a kitchen attached at the back. Mabel gave him a concerned look.

 

“You okay, Dipper?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed. “Wait a second. What are you thinking about?” Candy and Grenda went on ahead, promising to save them both seats.

 

“Uhh…” _Would it be weird to say that you’re obsessing over a counselor because you think there’s a mystery there when really he’s probably just a very normal guy?_ Dipper asked himself. _Yes. Yes, it would be weird_. “...Nothing?” said Dipper, his voice breaking a little bit. He winced. The stream of kids going into the building parted around them as if they were two stationary rocks in a river.

 

Mabel’s eyes narrowed even further. “Oh yeah? Nothing?” She began to slowly raise her hands to her face. “Allow me to put on my-”

 

“Great talking to you! Okay time to go,” said Dipper quickly, pushing past her and through the door before she could even say ‘skepticals’. Inside were ten long tables with benches. About twenty kids could sit comfortably at each one, but only half were filled. One table appeared to be completely reserved for staff. Dipper saw not only Wendy and a few of her friends, but also Bill, sitting alone at one end. He quickly spotted Candy and Grenda at a table near the back and moved over to sit by them, since they were the only campers he kinda knew. Mabel slid onto the bench beside him a few seconds later.

 

“We’re talking about that later,” she promised, and Dipper nodded reluctantly. Secrets could not be kept from Mabel for long.

 

He looked up and down the table, but did not recognize anybody else sitting at it. There was food set up on it already, all of it covered with tinfoil. Nobody else was eating yet, though, so he didn’t touch it. Mabel started talking to Candy and Grenda again, but quieter.

 

Eventually, everyone was inside the dining room and sitting down. There was silence for a few seconds as everybody looked around, wondering what was supposed to happen. One kid a few tables away from Dipper hesitantly reached out and touched the tinfoil covering one of the dishes, and instantly had his hand smacked away by Bill. Dipper blinked. When did he go over there?

 

Suddenly, there was the sound of rapid footsteps outside. New campers turned to look at the door in alarm. Returning campers (the few that they were), subtly drew their hands up to cover their ears. The door to the dining hall slammed open and Stan Pines stormed in, a bullhorn in one hand and a soda can in the other. Dipper and Mabel perked up a little bit. They hadn’t seen him since last Christmas.

 

“Alright, listen up!” Stan said into the bullhorn. Now everybody was covering their ears. “I am Stan Pines, the director and owner of this camp. You can call me Mr. Pines, or... Mr. Pines. That’s- that’s it, that’s all you can call me. This is the first meal of the summer, so it’s pretty fancy. Don’t expect anythin’ like it again!” A few of the kids laughed nervously. Stan frowned. “I’m serious. We don’t have the budget for this kind of meal every night, folks!” The laughter died abruptly. Stan took a sip of his drink. “Well, that, and also our head chef is pretty much a hobo. I don’t make the rules, kids.”

 

“Isn’t that _exactly_ what you do?” called a kid in the back.

 

“Huh? What? Who said that?” Stan asked, looking around. The bullhorn squeaked loudly. Nobody answered him. “Okay, then I’ll continue with the speech. It’s goin’ to be long, because you’re all very irritating.”

 

The same kid spoke up again. “Aw, but the food’ll get cold!”

 

Stan slammed down his soda on the nearest table. “Alright, that’s it! Who is it?” Everyone stayed silent and immobile, watching the drama. Stan looked around the dining hall. “Nobody is eating until I find out who it is.” Instantly, ninety hands were pointing ninety fingers at one boy in the back corner. He looked very pale. Stan snapped his fingers. “You. Up here.”

 

The kid got up and walked to stand in front of the staff table. Stan stood next to him, and continued to speak into the bullhorn even though they were less than two feet away from each other.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

The kid winced at the volume. “Uh. G-Gabe.” He tugged on his ponytail nervously. Dipper heard Mabel gasp next to him, and kicked her under the table.

 

“Seriously?” he hissed.

 

She sighed. “Sorry.”

 

“Okay, ‘Gabe’,” said Stan. “I’d like to thank you.”

 

“Thank me?”

 

“Yes,” Stan said seriously. Then he turned the bullhorn’s volume up to maximum and shouted, “For givin’ me the perfect segway into an introduction on discipline in this camp!”

 

Gabe covered his ears, and everybody groaned. Grenda let her head fall onto the table with a crash.

 

“I was here last year,” she muttered. “We’re never gonna eat.” Candy put a hand on her back in commiseration.

 

“It’s okay,” she said reassuringly. “If he goes on too long, we can eat the weakest kids as a way to survive.”

 

Up at the front, Stan had turned away from Gabe and was addressing the whole room again. “So, Gabe here interrupted me during an announcement. Now, normally, I would applaud that brilliant disregard for authority, but since the authority was me, I’m not gonna.” Gabe rolled his eyes from behind Stan’s back. A few people giggled, and Stan whirled around. “Alright, squirt, that’s strike number three.”

 

“What?!” exclaimed Gabe, laughing a little. He spread his hands and gave his newfound audience a look that said, Can you believe this guy?

 

“One strike: you get a warning,” said Stan. He pulled the bullhorn away from his face and said in a normal voice, “Consider this the warning.”

 

Gabe shrugged. “Okay, thanks. Can I go now?”

 

“Nope. Strike two: you lose dessert privileges.”

 

The crowd of kids gasped. Gabe was starting to actually look upset.

 

“Aw, what! Man, c’mon-”

 

“Cool it, blondie,” Stan interrupted. “Third strike- which you just received, _by the way_ \- is that you have to sit up here, at the counselor’s table.” Gabe calmed down a little, but Dipper noticed that the same returning campers that had covered their ears were exchanging alarmed glances.

 

“Oh, that’s not so-” began Gabe.

 

“For three days.”

 

“WHAT!”

 

“And you get to sit next to our senior most counselor, Bill,” finished Stan triumphantly. Whispering broke out among the veteran campers. Dipper’s eyes widened. Bill had somehow, in the small space of time between admonishing the kid for peeking at the food and Stan referencing him, moved back to his spot at the counselor’s table. He was grinning and waving. Nobody waved back.

 

_So I’m not the only one creeped out by that guy,_ Dipper thought with relief. _Wait. That’s not good. That just means that there’s definitely something wrong with him!_

 

Back at the front, Gabe was grumbling as he plopped down on the bench next to Bill, scooting as far away from him as he could. Stan turned the bullhorn’s volume down from ‘deafening’ to just ‘unbearably loud’.

 

“And that’s what happens when you interrupt me!” he said, as if finishing a speech. There was dead silence. Wendy began clapping and cheering, the only sound in the whole room.

 

“Good job, Mr. Pines!”

 

“Don’t patronize me, Corduroy.”

 

“Sorry, sir.” she said, grinning. Her group of friends up at the table snickered a little to themselves, and Stan sighed. It came through the bullhorn as a staticky rustling sound.

 

“Anyway,” he said, with a little less force. “Let’s just… run through the other rules real quick, okay?” Nobody said ‘okay’ back, but he hadn’t expected or wanted them to. “Okay, so: Rule number one: do _not_ come talk to me in my office. If you have a problem, ask the counselors. Oh, yeah, these are the counselors, if you hadn’t picked up on that already.” He gestured to the table behind him. “I’m not gonna introduce them. I don’t pay them to get called the right names. In fact, I barely pay ‘em at all!” He looked around the room, waiting for laughter. There were no reactions. “I barely pay ‘em at all!” he repeated. Still nothing. “Nobody? Really?”

 

There were a few nervous chuckles.

 

“It’s funny because it’s true!” called Wendy from the table.

 

Satisfied, Stan kept talking. The rules he listed off included ‘write home to your parents that it’s traditional to tip the camp director’ and ‘if the American Camp Association comes by for an inspection, act well nourished’. Dipper stopped listening after that.

 

He shifted his focus to Gabe, who was looking extremely uncomfortable with where he was sitting. As Dipper watched, Bill leaned over and said something to him quietly, then collapsed in on himself with silent laughter. Gabe turned very pale and scooted even further away, bumping into Nate on his other side.

 

Dipper frowned. That was weird.

 

“...And finally, do not- I repeat, _do not_ \- eat anything the head chef offers you outside of mealtimes. It is almost definitely raccoon meat,” Stan finished.

 

“I resent that!” called a voice from the kitchen. Stan ignored it.

 

He looked around, picked up his soda can, and said, “Okay. That’s it.” It was a very anticlimactic ending to a long speech, but nobody noticed. They were all too busy tearing the tinfoil off of the (now lukewarm) plates, and digging in.

 

“Uh…” said Dipper apprehensively, poking at what he thought was meatloaf, but smelled more like pork. “Um. Is anybody sure what this is?”

 

The other three were spared having to answer by Stan suddenly calling out, “Hey! Dipper, Mabel, get over here!”

 

“Oh my gosh thank you,” muttered Mabel quickly, throwing down her fork and abandoning the congealing _something_ on her plate. Candy and Grenda looked up in alarm.

 

“Why does Mr. Pines want to talk with you?” Candy asked.

 

Grenda immediately followed up with an incredulous, “ _What did you do?”_

 

Mabel just laughed as Dipper stood up and began to make his way over to Stan, who was by the door. “Don’t worry, guys, it’s ok! He’s our uncle.”

 

_“What?”_ both girls shouted in amazement.

 

“See ya later!” said Mabel cheerily, following Dipper.

 

“I did not know Mr. Pines was capable of having a family,” Candy muttered to Grenda, who nodded in shocked agreement.

 

Stan waved both the twins through the door and out of the dining hall. From outside, the sounds of clinking plates and cries of ‘oh God what _is_ this?!’ were very much muffled. Once all three of them were outside, there was the obligatory hugging and questions like ‘How’re your parents?’ and ‘Stan, did that cook even go to culinary school?’.

 

Dipper cleared his throat. “Stan, why did you wanna see us?”

 

“What, a guy can’t just have a casual chat with his favorite niece and nephew?”

 

“ _Grand_ niece and nephew,” corrected Mabel. Stan rolled his eyes.

 

“Yeesh, kid, way to make me feel old.” He sighed. “Look, I just wanted to tell you in person: This is the camp’s last year open.”  The twins gasped.

 

“What?!” cried Mabel. “But- but you can’t close the camp!”

 

“Kid, what do you want me to do? Attendance is at an all-time low, we’re on a shoestring budget, and we’re in the middle of the woods in _Oregon!_ Nobody wants to send their kid to Oregon for the summer!” Stan sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just… don’t tell the other kids, okay? Don’t wanna get everybody bummed out.”

 

Dipper and Mabel exchanged glances, but agreed.

 

“Anyway,” Stan continued awkwardly, “I ordered Thai food for myself up at my house so… I’m gonna go eat that.”

 

The twins nodded numbly. The camp? Closing? They’d only just arrived, but it had already seemed like they’d been there for a lifetime. The idea of the camp ending seemed impossible. They went back inside. What else could they do? The camp was closing.

 

Back at the table, Grenda and Candy were animatedly discussing something called ‘Dream Boy High’. Dipper, knowing that if Mabel started down that road she would never stop, interrupted the conversation with a loud “Hi guys!”

 

“What did he say to you?” asked Candy.

 

“Nothing. Family stuff. Finance. Politics, maybe? I don’t know. Why- why are you asking?” babbled Mabel. She stuffed a forkful of the mystery meatloaf into her mouth and immediately spat it out, an expression of pure disgust on her face. Dipper closed his eyes slowly. Candy and Grenda stared at her in confusion.

 

_“Anyway,”_ said Dipper, over Mabel’s continued gagging sounds. “So, how about that Bill guy, huh? What’s up with him? What’s his deal?”

 

Now it was Mabel’s turn to be exasperated. “Are you serious? You’re _still_ going on about that?”

 

“C’mon Mabel, you saw him! That guy is weird!” cried Dipper.

 

“Oh, yeah,” agreed Grenda. “He’s super weird. I heard a rumor that he keeps a boxful of all the teeth kids have ever lost in Cabin 3 under his bed. Creepy.” She poked at the stuff on her plate with disinterest.

 

“Okay, I admit, he’s not the most _normal_ guy out there, but that doesn’t mean he’s some kind of… I don’t know! Some sort of _demon,_ or whatever you think he is!” Mabel said.

 

Dipper scoffed. “I don’t think he’s a _demon,_ I just- Oh my gosh.” He looked up at Bill, who was currently leaning over and sticking his fingers in a very uncomfortable Gabe’s mouth, looking at his teeth. “Oh my gosh.”

 

“What?” said Mabel, following his gaze. “Oh. Okay. That’s weird.”

  
Dipper stared, shaking his head in disbelief. “He’s totally a demon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyy a slightly longer chapter! whooo 
> 
> thanks for all your kudos and hits and stuff, yall are top notch honestly
> 
> fuck im going to sleep


	3. Wow, These Woods Are Easy To Get Lost In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper gets lost. Dipper gets frustrated. Dipper makes a list. People other than Dipper make a discovery. Bill is there. What fun!

After dinner (which they’d all barely managed to choke down), Dipper announced that he was going to head back to the cabin. They had nothing else scheduled for the day since everyone was still settling in, and he wanted to do some snooping around.

“Aww, c’mon Dipper, don’t you wanna hang out with us?” Mabel asked, striking what she considered an adorable and winning pose. Dipper looked at her for a second, taking in the braces-filled smile and Grenda and Candy giving double thumbs up behind her.

“Not really.”

Mabel dropped the pose, sighing. “Oh, poo. Go have fun with your conspiracy theories or whatever, bro bro.”

Dipper left them sitting on a bench outside the dining hall, animatedly discussing the good old days before Smile Dip became illegal. He shuddered, remembering when Mabel would have two or three packets a day and nearly drive their mother to tears.

He passed by a couple of tetherball courts and waved to Wendy, who waved back before she spiked a ball so hard that it smacked an unsuspecting Lee in the face and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. Dipper laughed and walked on, taking the dirt footpath that he was ninety percent sure led back to Cabin 3.

The path was deserted and completely silent. It was a big forest, with lots of old pine trees and bushes and probably a good many animals, too, but as Dipper walked he could hear nothing. No birdsongs. No rabbits or squirrels or chipmunks. It was eerie. He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked a little bit faster.

Suddenly, behind him, he heard a twig snap. He stopped and looked around, but nothing was behind him. Nothing stepped out of the woods. He kept walking. Another twig snapped. He bit his lip and kept walking, trying not to think about what lived in woods like this, bears and wolves and bigger things. A patch of leaves rustled off to his right and he just. Kept. Walking.

In fact, he was so focused on walking and _not_ thinking about whatever was making sounds that when he looked up after a few minutes, he had no idea where he was. The path had dwindled down to an overgrown track, and the trees seemed closer together than they should have been.

_Ugh. I knew this cabin would be impossible to find_ , he thought, trying to joke with himself. It didn’t work. A cold, anxious feeling was pooling in his stomach. These woods were too big to get comfortably lost in, and it could take Mabel hours to realize he was missing.

A twig snapped. Dipper could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and he paused for a minute. There were no other sounds except a distant woodpecker, the first evidence of wildlife he’d heard during the whole walk. A bush shook behind him. He whirled around, but there was nobody there. The trees towered over him, and he noticed that the light was fading.

_Great. Stuck out in the woods and being followed by something while the sun is going down. Just how I wanted to spend my first day here._

He took a deep breath, trying to focus. Panicking wouldn’t do him any good, and he needed to calm down. _In for five, out for five. Stay calm_. His heart had almost returned to normal when a cheerful voice called out from behind him.

“Hey there, Pine Tree!”

“Aaah!” Dipper screamed, jumping around to see Bill Cipher leaning up against a tree trunk.

Bill raised both hands in a calming gesture, but he was grinning widely, happy to see Dipper startled. “Whoa, whoa, kid, chill out! Geez, you’re jumpy.”

Dipper backed up a few steps. “What are you doing out here?”

Bill shrugged. “I’m a counselor. I can do what I want.” He narrowed his eye. “What are _you_ doing out here?”

“I…” Dipper trailed off, looking down. Bill looked at him in silence for a second, then burst out laughing.

“Ha! You’re lost!” He doubled over with laughter. “You’re actually lost! On your first day!” he said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I gotta hand it to ya, Pine Tree, when it comes to stupid you take the cake.”

Dipper frowned. _That was a bit rude._ “I don’t really think it’s that funny.”

Bill sobered suddenly, straightening up and pinning Dipper with an almost angry look. “Well, I _do_.” Dipper gulped.

_Oh, right, don’t annoy the potentially evil supernatural creature. Got it._ He forced a weak smile. “Uh. Anyway. Could you maybe… show me the way back to the cabin?”

Bill brightened again. “Ha, sure thing kid! C’mon, it’s just through here.” He grabbed Dipper’s arm and started dragging him off the trail, deeper into the woods.

“Hey, hey, what- stop!” Dipper shouted, yanking his arm back. “That’s not the way back.”

Bill rolled his eye. “Yes, it is.” He grabbed Dipper’s arm again, this time with a tighter grip. “Honestly, Pine Tree, have a little faith. Nobody knows these woods better than I do.”

Dipper reluctantly let himself get pulled through the underbrush, a few thorns scraping at his ankles. “Really? Nobody?”

“Really,” repeated Bill, ducking under a branch. “Nobody.”

Sensing an opportunity for information, Dipper asked, “And- and how long have you been working here? You know, to know your way around so well.”

Bill was silent for a few seconds. Just when Dipper thought that he was going to completely ignore the question, he said, “Yeesh, you’re a nosy little squirt. A long time, okay? I’ve worked here for a long time.” He paused, thinking. “Maybe since right after this stupid trash camp opened.”

“Hey man, this camp isn’t _trash,”_ Dipper protested.

Bill looked back at him and raised an eyebrow. “You saw the food at dinner, right?”

There was a few more minutes of awkward, silent walking. Bill still had a death grip on Dipper’s arm, and it was starting to go numb.

“You don’t seem old enough to have been around that long,” Dipper blurted out.

Bill grinned. “I’m older than I look, kid.” Then he shoved through another cluster of bushes and dragged them both out into a much more open space. “Tada! The path. Cabin 3’s right up there.”

Dipper looked around, rubbing feeling back into his arm as Bill let go. “Uh… Could you be more specific?”

“It’s right there, kid,” said Bill, grinning. “Just push on some trees, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

“What? Come on man, just show me where it is,” Dipper protested, but Bill was already walking back into the woods.

“Good luck, Pine Tree! I’ll be watching you!”

And with that, Dipper was alone again. He looked around in annoyance, searching for the tree that the door to the cabin was disguised as. Hesitantly, he pushed on the trunk of the one closest to him. It didn’t move, and he swore he could hear Bill laughing somewhere. He turned on the spot, trying to look for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. All the trees looked the same.

He walked across the road and pushed at another trunk. And another. All of them refused to move, and doubt crept into his head. _How do I know the cabin is even around here? Bill could have dragged me anywhere!_ He began to search more frantically, shoving at the trees with both hands, zigzagging across the road. The woods were silent, but he could feel that Bill was watching him from somewhere. Two, three, four trees all didn’t budge, and he was just about to give up and go find Mabel and the others when-

_Click._

The fifth tree trunk swung inward. Dipper let out a huge sigh of relief, and walked into the empty cabin. The woods behind him were silent, and Dipper imagined that Bill was probably kind of annoyed that he’d figured it out.

He climbed into his bed and pulled out a notebook that he was supposed to be using for summer book reports. _Eh, whatever, I’ll just rip out the pages._ He uncapped a pen and stuck one end in his mouth, staring at the page and thinking. If he was really gonna prove this Bill thing (which he obviously needed to, after _that_ whole exchange), he needed a game plan. A list. He had to be organized and prepared and in control.

After a few minutes, he began to write.

_How to Prove That Bill Cipher (here on out referred to as Bill) is a Demon from Hell (possibly)._

As an afterthought he added, _By Dipper Pines_ right beneath it. Then he got down to business.

  1. _Convince others; A proper team is crucial in mystery solving. Mabel, Wendy, Stan, maybe Soos? He seems like he knows things. Stan might be the toughest one, so save him for last._

  2. _Gather evidence. Photographs, physical stuff like hair or clothes maybe? Wait, that’s creepy. Not that. But photos, definitely._

  3. _Note to self: buy a camera at the camp canteen. Maybe more than one. Actually, yeah, buy more than one._

  4. _Do! Not! Let! Bill! Find! Out! Do not let Bill find out! He could be SUPER dangerous, we don’t know! Better safe than sorry! And even if he’s just a normal guy (WHICH I DOUBT), we still don’t want him knowing we’re doing this._




__

_Goals:_

  1. _Be proved right (ha!)_

  2. _Get Cipher fired (excorsized? Banished? Whatever, just get him gone)_

  3. _Possibly drum up enough public support that the camp gets funding for another year (might have to work that into a separate plan, but it can probably be done)_

  4. _Convince Wendy that I’m awesome_



  1. _Second note to self: buy new pens._




The last bullet point was blotchy and almost obscured by ink spots. Dipper was busy coughing ink out of his throat when suddenly, Mabel swung the door open.

“Dipping Sauce!” she yelled, and he jumped.

“Mabel? How did you find this place?!”

She shrugged. “I dunno. It wasn’t too hard. I mean, I’ve been here before.” She paused, looking at him, a smug grin creeping over her face. “Wait. Did you have trouble finding it?”

“Are you even allowed in here?” Dipper asked, skating over the question. Mabel grinned at him for another second before dropping it as well.

“Psh! Rules-shmules, little bro. Anyway, I just came to tell you that while we were exploring- don’t ask why- Grenda found something in the woods,” Mabel said, bouncing on the balls of her feet a little bit.

Dipper raised an eyebrow. “‘Found something’? That’s not very specific, Mabel.”

Mabel rolled her eyes. “Something _cool,_ Dipper! Please come look?” Dipper sighed, making a big show of it.

“Weeeellll….”

“ _Dipper_ ,” cried Mabel in exasperation. “I’m serious!”

Dipper shrugged and closed his notebook with a snap, setting it aside. “Fine. But let’s do it quickly, okay? I’ve got a lot of important stuff to do.”

Mabel cheered happily and pulled him out of the cabin. She led him down the main path for a while but then veered sharply right before the dining hall in its small clearing came into sight, plunging down a smaller path. It was getting dark in earnest now. They were almost running and Dipper grabbed Mabel’s arm, forcing her to slow down. 

“Why are we going so fast?” he demanded, panting a little bit. He was getting a little tired of people pulling him through mysterious paths in the woods. Once was enough for one day. Or week. Or month.

“I dunno,” Mabel said. “It just seemed appropriate.” She started walking again, but much slower. Dipper noticed vaguely that this part of the woods, although probably less than a quarter of a mile from where he’d gotten lost, was filled with sounds. Birds chirped and whistled, insects hummed, and he could hear tiny rustles in the leaves and bushes and smaller animals darted by. It was kind of strange, he reflected, that two parts of the same forest could have such different levels of wildlife.

After a few more minutes of walking, they came across a small clearing, no more than five feet in diameter. Candy and Grenda were there, standing around something that was sticking out of the ground.

“Dipper!” called Candy, waving him over. “You have to see this- it’s so weird!”

Dipper hurried to look. The girls moved aside for him, revealing a shrunken old tree stump, weathered by rain and time. He sighed.

“Really? A stump?”

Mabel shook her head. “Look at what’s on it.”

Dipper moved closer, leaning over to look at the top of the stump. His breath caught. On the flat top of the stump was carved a perfect triangle with one eye. It had two arms extending from its sides, two legs, and what looked like roughly carved fire covering its hands. Underneath the whole weird portrait was a seemingly random string of letters.

BMXBZT XBUDIJOH

“Any idea what it means?” Mabel asked. Dipper shook his head wordlessly and cursed himself for leaving his pen in the cabin, even though it was broken. He settled for just mouthing the words over and over to himself, committing them to memory. _B-M-X-B-Z-T X-B-U-D-I-J-O-H._ It must be a code, but what kind? He didn’t know enough about ciphers to figure it out, but maybe there was a book somewhere or somebody who could tell him…

Suddenly, from the main path, he could hear a voice calling out, “Diiiipper! Maaabel! Grendaaaa, Caaaandy! Hello?”

All four of them jumped, tearing their attention away from the stump. Dipper looked around and realized that some time in the past few minutes, the sun had completely sunk beneath the horizon. It was nearly pitch black, and people were probably wondering where they all were.

“We should go. They’re looking for us,” said Mabel nervously, echoing his thoughts.

“Yeah,” agreed Grenda, and Candy nodded too. They all looked at Dipper, but he’d turned back to the stump and was muttering the letters under his breath again. _B-M-X-B-Z-T X-B-U-D-I-J-O-H._ He had to make sure he didn’t forget any part of the message.

Mabel sighed loudly, startling him. “Dipper, we have to go.”

He nodded reluctantly. “Yeah… yeah, okay.” He gave the carving one more glance, focusing on the triangle and the eye. Something in his brain whispered that he’d seen something like that before, and recently, but he couldn’t remember when or what it had been.

“Kiiiids!” called the same voice in the distance, a little closer. “Seriously, come on!”

“We’re coming!” Mabel yelled back, tugging on Dipper’s arm. He let himself get pulled away, and they all walked back down the tiny path. _Triangle with an eye… Eye triangle…_ It was there, just on the tip of his tongue. He could almost get it, before it slipped away from him again. It was almost as if something was blocking him from remembering, as if someone- or something- didn’t want him to recognize the symbol.

_Triangle. Triangle…_ Dipper pulled up short as realization struck, smacking his forehead. “Those stupid posters!” he exclaimed. The girls looked at him in confusion.

“Posters?” repeated Candy. “What posters?”

Dipper started walking again, but faster, talking excitedly. “Bill has a bunch of dumb posters with triangle puns on them by his bed! And his eyepatch has a triangle on it! And he’s only got one eye!”

“Dipper, what are you saying?” asked Mabel, huffing to keep up with him. They were quickly approaching the main path.

“I’m saying that Bill carved that thing,” said Dipper triumphantly. “And I don’t know why yet, exactly, but think about it! It makes sense.” He could feel the dots connecting quickly in his head. “One eyed triangles… they’re like Bill’s _thing_ , like his calling card or something.”

“Dipper, he’s not an assassin,” Mabel said.

Dipper waved the correction away. “You know what I mean.”

“There you guys are!” said Wendy, suddenly appearing at the intersection of their path and the main one. The kids shielded their eyes as the flashlight she was holding shined in their faces. “Guys!” she called over her shoulder. “They’re over here!” A few other counselors came into view, including Tambry and Nate from before, plus a few others. One of them, a guy in a black sweatshirt, folded his arms and sighed.

“Great. We found them. Can we get out of this place now? It’s creepy.”

“Shut it, Robbie, it’s not that bad,” said Wendy, but she seemed a little nervous as well. “You kids all good?” They nodded. “Great. Let’s go.”

The whole group began walking down the main path, with the counselors forming a protective buffer in front of and behind the kids, as if they might run away. Dipper chewed on his lip, barely noticing where he was stepping. _Triangles…_ Beside him, Mabel was being her usual friendly self.

“Hi! I’m Mabel! What’s your name?”

“Ugh, whatever, kid,” was the only answer. Wendy seemed to shake herself out of some deep thought.

“Oh, geez, lemme introduce everybody. Uhh… this is Tambry-”

“Hey.”

“Nate-”

“‘Sup?”

“Lee.”

“Heyo!”

“Thompson.”

“Hi, guys.”

“And… Robbie.”

“Whatever.”

Wendy rolled her eyes at the last part. Mabel set to greeting everyone individually, and Dipper privately thought that even if they didn’t have flashlights, Mabel’s shining personality could probably light the way back all on its own. With the rest of the gang distracted, he realized that he and Wendy were left on the outside of the group together. His heart sped up a little, but he tried to calm down. _Don’t be creepy._

__

“So,” he began. “W-what’s up with- uh. How did Bill lose his eye?” _Wow. That wasn’t what I wanted to say at_ all.

__

Wendy looked down at him in surprise, and shrugged. “I dunno.”

Dipper frowned. “How can you not know? Haven’t you known him for, like, forever?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t talk about his eye. At least, not like. Truthfully. You know?” Wendy said. “I mean, I asked once, and he told me it got stabbed out during a street fight. And he told Lee-”

“A dog bit him,” supplied Lee.

“He told me he was scratching his eye and it just came out,” said Thompson, tuning into the conversation. Everybody laughed.

“Betcha believed him!” laughed Nate. “I asked him once, and he said his _own mother_ carved it out-” He lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. “ _With a Swiss army knife_.” There was a beat of silence, and then everybody laughed again, but a little more uncomfortably.

“Shut up, Nate, he did _not,”_ said Lee, punching his shoulder.

“No, seriously, he did,” Nate insisted. There was another moment of silence.

“That’s messed up, dude,” said Wendy, and everybody nodded. “Oh, this is us,” she continued, stopping in front of the dark shadow of a cabin. “C’mon, girls. And don’t get used to all the space. Pacifica’s coming in the morning.” Mabel, Candy, and Grenda followed her inside.

“Goodnight!” called Mabel over her shoulder. Dipper raised a hand to wave back at her, and then they were all gone.

“C’mon, kid,” Robbie said, pushing Dipper forward a little. “Let’s move.”

It was an awkward and silent walk to Cabin 3. Dipper concentrated on not tripping over roots or rocks in the dark, since it seemed like Wendy had been the only one to bring a flashlight. Without her there, it was almost impossible to see.

“Kid. The cabin’s right here,” said Lee from behind him, and Dipper hastily turned around, realizing he’d walked right past it. _I really need to work on that._ To his surprise, instead of just opening the door, Lee knocked politely. After a moment, it swung open, splashing a rectangle of yellow lamp light onto the ground. Bill stood in the doorway, grinning. Behind him, the Corduroy brothers paused in their roughhousing for a moment, one of them hanging comically off of the rafters by his knees.

“Looks like you found our wayward camper,” said Bill, and Lee nodded.

“Yup.”

“You gonna let him come in?” Bill asked, and Dipper realized at the same time everybody else did that Lee was holding his shoulder in an almost protective gesture.

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Sorry, kid.” Lee let go and Dipper stepped forward a little bit, only to be grabbed by Bill and pulled all the way inside. The Corduroy brothers were still silent.

Bill grinned even wider. “Thanks! Bye.” And he slammed the door. The brothers exploded into noise immediately, as the boy on the rafter unhooked his legs and slammed into the two others. Dipper frowned. This was what he was gonna be living with?

Bill flopped onto his bed. “Yeah, it’s a little loud. That’s life, Pine Tree. You’re born, you live, some red headed idiot punches you in the face a few times, you die. Maggots infest your body. Your skin falls off in rotting clumps. It’s just how it is.”

Dipper looked at him, surprised. “How’d you know I was thinking that? Not- not the death part. The first part.”

“Lucky guess.” Bill sat up just as quickly as he’d lain down. “HEY IDIOTS! IT’S BEDTIME!”

“But it’s only, like, eight o’clock!” one guy complained as he held his brother in a firm headlock.

“Well, you’re annoying and I’m in charge,” said Bill blithely. “So shut up and go brush your teeth or whatever. I’m gonna go do stuff.”

“What stuff?” asked Dipper cautiously.

“Counselor stuff,” said Bill. “Stop asking questions, kid.”

Before Dipper could respond, the Corduroy boys marched out of the cabin, grumbling quietly and effectively cutting off the conversation. Bill followed right on the tail end of the line and flicked the lights in the cabin off as he went, leaving Dipper in the dark in more ways than one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, jeez i know its april fools but look! a real chapter! i did it
> 
> its been a weird week. Normally my tutor of choice is Ms. Atbash, but today Ms. Caesar subbed in, and only for one shift. I guess this chapter was kind of influenced by that


	4. Old Rivals Arrive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pacifica moves in, Mabel gives herself a mission, and Dipper looks for a camera with which to Begin His Investigation

Pacifica Northwest moved in at noon on Sunday. Dipper stood outside Cabin C with Mabel and watched as a butler (a real, live, actual butler) carried in three huge purple trunks, each with a golden ‘PN’ etched on it. Pacifica herself stood off to the side, dressed in the kind of stylish outdoor clothing that is never really meant to be worn out of doors. She was texting rapidly onto a thin purple cell phone, completely ignoring everyone around her. Wendy was leaning against the side of the cabin, and as the butler came outside for the third and final time, she reached over and plucked the phone out of Pacifica’s hands.

 

“Sorry, kiddo. No phones.”

 

Pacifica gasped loudly. “What! You can’t do that! That’s my phone, give it back!”

 

Wendy rolled her eyes and passed the phone to the butler, who tucked it into his own pocket. “There ya go, Jeeves. Take it far, far away from here.”

 

“My name is Harold, miss,” said the butler stuffily, but everyone ignored him.

 

“Give me back my phone!” Pacifica shrieked, and the twins covered their ears. Mabel looked at Dipper with slight dismay, and he shrugged helplessly.

 

Wendy frowned, getting into serious counselor mode. “Pacifica, it’s against camp policy to let you keep that thing. Your parents signed a contract agreeing to this.”

 

“My parents?” said Pacifica, deflating rapidly.

 

“Yup. I mean, we can always call them if you really care that much-”

 

“Nope! No, no that’s fine. Don’t call them,” Pacifica interrupted loudly. Wendy blinked in surprise.

 

“Okay, if you’re sure…”

 

“Very sure,” she insisted. Dipper and Mabel exchanged glances, surprised at the outburst. Their silent communication caught the attention of Wendy.

 

“Dipper! Mabel! Get over here,” she said. “Alright, Northwest, why don’t you come meet one of your new cabin mates?”

 

“I’m going to be living with _this_ train wreck?” Pacifica said sharply, looking Mabel up and down, taking in the flyaways, dirty socks, and bright sweater that proclaimed that it belonged to _MABEL!_ , with lots of glitter and a few light bulbs for good measure.

 

Mabel seemed a little taken aback at the harsh first assessment, but stuck her hand out for a shake anyway. “Hello! My name is Mabel. And personally I find train wrecks compelling and visually interesting things to look at.”

 

Pacifica scoffed, looking down at the outstretched hand with something approaching disgust. “You’re joking, right? I’m not allowed to shake hands with anyone whose parents make less than two hundred thousand a year.”

 

“Not allowed…?” Mabel said, drawing her arm back a little bit.

 

“I mean not supposed to,” Pacifica corrected. “And I don’t want to!” She pushed past the twins and stomped off towards Stans office-slash-house, muttering about changing cabins and staying away from people who looked like they lived in a pigsty.

 

“If Waddles sleeps in my room,” said Mabel, “Does that make it a pigsty?” Dipper shrugged.

 

“Don’t let her get you down. She’s just a really, _really_ rich brat. From a family of rich brats,” Wendy said, putting a hand on Mabel’s shoulder comfortingly.

 

Mabel shook her head. “No. I don’t think that’s all she is. I think that deep down, Pacifica Northwest is a good person.”

 

\--------------------------

 

“Pacifica Northwest is not a good person,” said Candy a few days later, stabbing at her gray breakfast.

 

“I mean, honestly!” Mabel agreed around a rubbery piece of pancake (Stan had been right on the first day; the food really had gone downhill). “I don’t understand how one person can be so… so… so _negative_ all the time! And you know that I hate to talk badly about people but she’s just so… so…”

 

“So Pacifica,” supplied Candy. She poked at something on her plate which may have been bacon or may have been a leaf. Mabel nodded in violent agreement, chewing the pancake with difficulty.

 

Dipper didn’t join in, or even look up from his notebook where he was compiling all he knew about Bill. He had about zero interest in discussing Pacifica, or anything related to her.

 

Mabel sighed. “I just think she shouldn’t be so cynical all the time. She’s only hurting herself!” She rested her head in one hand. “If she just loosened up a little bit, she could really have fun around here. Like, I get that she’s really rich and she probably doesn’t have a lot of friends-” Mabel cut herself off with a gasp. “That’s it!”

 

“What’s _it?_ ” asked Grenda. Candy looked equally confused.

 

“Girls!” Mabel cried in exasperation. “Isn’t it obvious? Pacifica needs _friends!_ ” She looked around the table excitedly with spread arms, waiting for the positive reactions to flood in.

 

“Be friends with Pacifica?” Candy said doubtfully. “No offense to you, Mabel, but I would rather eat my own toenails.” Mabel’s arm clunked down onto the plastic table. One of her sleeves slowly began soaking up syrup from the plate it had landed on.

 

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Mabel insisted. “Dipper, back me up.”

 

Dipper’s eyes peeked over the top of the notebook. “Mabel, I don’t think the power of friendship can make gross people become good.”

 

Mabel frowned, and Dipper began to feel apprehensive. He knew that face. That was Mabel’s Determination Face™. That was her ‘ _I am going to do this thing and I am going to succeed, because I am Mabel and I always win_ ’ face. That face won her a pig at the county fair last summer. That face was dangerous.

 

“Mabel…” he began, but she was already standing up.

 

“Too late!” she said cheerily, and made her way down the bench and into more open space. “Operation Pacifica is go! And I’m gonna think of a better name for that later,” she added as an afterthought. Dipper sighed, watching as she made her way to where Pacifica was sitting alone at the far end of the dining hall. He turned away, unwilling to watch as his sister was shot down.

 

“What’s happening?” he asked after a few minutes when Mabel hadn’t returned. Candy and Grenda turned around in their seats to watch the action.

 

“Mabel is talking,” said Candy. “And… so is Pacifica?”

 

“They’re having a conversation!” Grenda cried in amazement, standing up for a better look.

 

“A civil conversation!” Candy added. “With smiling! Now they are getting up and- oh no-” Suddenly, both of them scrambled back into their original positions, hastily picking up their forks and pretending to eat. Dipper opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Scoot over, loser.”

 

He looked and saw Pacifica standing there, with such a bored, apathetic look on her face that Dipper was almost worried she was hurting herself with how flat her mouth was. He scooted over to Mabel’s empty spot on the bench. The thought of refusing didn’t even cross his mind. Pacifica sat down beside him, every atom of her body radiating disdain. Mabel plonked down on her other side with a wide grin.

 

“Soooo…” she said, “This is Pacifica!”

 

There was a moment of dead, flabbergasted silence. A few of the kids further down the table stopped eating and stared in amazement at the miracle that was happening before them.

 

“Hi… Pacifica,” Grenda eventually said. Candy gave a tiny wave, and Dipper just stared. Mabel had gotten Pacifica Northwest- _Pacifica-freakin’-Northwest_ \- to sit at their table for breakfast. She was there. With them. And all it had taken was a few minutes of conversation with Mabel.

 

Pacifica folded her arms and lifted her chin a little bit. “Whatever. You losers should be grateful that I let brace-face drag me over here.”

 

“Hey, don’t call her that!” said Grenda angrily, and Mabel raised her hands in a placating gesture.

 

“It’s okay, Grenda, it’s okay! I really don’t mind,” she insisted. “I’m sure Paz will warm up to us eventually, right?”

 

“ _Don’t_ call me Paz.”

 

“If you let me call you Paz, I won’t let Grenda smash you if you call me brace-face again,” said Mabel sweetly. Pacifica considered it.

 

“...Deal.”

 

Mabel squealed in happiness and gave Pacifica a sudden and alarmingly forceful hug. Dipper kept an eye on Pacifica’s face, ready to call Mabel off if it looked like she was about to explode. To his surprise, she didn’t look angry. She only looked mildly annoyed.

 

_I guess this is a thing now,_ Dipper thought to himself. He shook his head in quiet amazement and turned back to his notes, the stubborn letters BMXBZT XBUDIJOH staring up at him. _Maybe it’s an Atbash cipher? How does that one work again?_

 

\---------------------------------

 

It was the first Friday of the summer, and Dipper Pines needed a camera. Desperately, actually. Without a camera, how was he going to get real, solid proof of Bill’s almost-certain demonic nature? He needed a backup camera, too, in case he lost the first one. Or if Mabel lost it. Or if it got broken, or ran out of film, or…. Yeah, he needed at least two cameras.

 

Only, he had no idea how to get them.

 

“Hey, Wendy?”

 

“Yeah, Dip, what’s up?”

 

They were out by the softball field. Dipper had spotted Wendy walking out there with a large net bag slung over her back, and had run to catch up with her. He was a little out of breath, but she didn’t stop walking and so he didn’t either.

 

“Uh, so I kinda- I wanted to- well you see the thing is-” he stuttered, and stopped.

 

Wendy looked down at him and hitched the bag, which was filled with various sports paraphernalia, higher up on her shoulder. “Spit it out, man, I have a dodgeball game to run in a couple minutes.” Dipper looked at the bag with sudden comprehension.

 

“Oh- okay, I- I just wanted to know where the camp, uh, camp canteen was? I need to buy a new camera.”

 

Wendy stopped walking suddenly and laughed, surprised. “We don’t have anything like that!”

 

“Oh,” Dipper said, embarrassed. “Sorry for bothering you.”

 

“Hey, hey, Dipper! Dude, don’t apologize,” Wendy said, catching his arm as he turned away. “You’re never bothering me. Seriously.”

 

Dipper stared at his feet, even more embarrassed now. “Ha, okay- I- uh. Thankyougottagobye.” He backed away and began walking off quickly.

 

“Try asking Stan if he has any lying around!” Wendy called after him. “It’s your best bet!” Dipper nodded but didn’t respond, heading towards Stan’s house a little faster than required. It was a little bit removed from the rest of the camp, in a big clearing with a parking lot that was always empty. Parents used to have to drive their kids to camp themselves and sign them in in person, but since Stan had finally switched to online registration and set up a bus service, there was no reason for any cars to enter the lot.

 

Stan’s house was less of a house and more of a shack. It was lopsided, with lots of colored windows and crooked stairs leading up to the door. Dipper noticed uncomfortably that a lot of the windows, especially at the top of the house, were triangular. There was even a triangle made of wood above the front door. He shivered, remembered the carving in the woods and its possible connection to Bill. Dipper walked up the steps and opened the door slowly, unsure if Stan was even in.

 

The first room inside the door was a big, open space, with several banners and posters with advertisements for the camp in vibrant reds and golds. Stan’s grinning face was on every single one of them, and even on each of the stacks of flyers set up on small tables around the room. On one end of the room was a small secretary’s desk with nothing on it except a yellow and dusty ‘Out to Lunch’ sign. Dipper doubted that there had been a secretary ‘out to lunch’ for at least ten years, or maybe there had never been one at all.

 

On the other side of the room was Stan’s desk. It was bigger, but not by much. He was sitting at it, shuffling through some papers and muttering, not noticing that Dipper had come in.

 

“Damn that white haired runt, does he really think-”

 

“Uh… Grunkle Stan?” Dipper interrupted. Stan’s head snapped up.

 

“Huh? What? Oh, it’s you.” He hastily shoved the packet of papers under a stack of folders. “Whaddaya want, kid? I’m a busy guy, so hurry it up.”

 

Dipper shuffled his feet a little bit. “I was just- Wendy said you might have some cameras. I need them. For… stuff.”

 

Stan raised an eyebrow. “ _Stuff?_ ”

 

Dipper nodded quickly. “Yup. Normal kid summer stuff involving cameras.” He winced internally. _Pull back, pull back, that was too weird_. Stan sighed and leaned back in his chair.

 

“Don’t try to con a con man, kid. What’re you gonna use these hypothetical cameras for?” Dipper stayed silent. “Seriously?” Stan said after a few seconds. “The cold shoulder? Ah, whatever. As long as it’s not illegal. And if it is, don’t do it around cops, capiche?” He stood up and walked out from behind his desk, going over to an old wooden door between a table with with pamphlets and, incongruously, a vending machine. The door had a sign on it which read:

 

NO KIDS

NO COUNSELORS

YES, CORDUROY AND CIPHER, THIS MEANS YOU

 

“Where are you going?” Dipper said as Stan swung the door open.

 

“To get my contraband box. You think I’m gonna give you a brand new camera? Ha! Fat chance,” Stan laughed, disappearing through the door. From the other side, he called, “And if you’ve got a few quarters, feel free to get something from the vending machine! You’re only givin’ me more money!”

 

Dipper took a look inside the machine, and noticed that everything inside was covered in a fine layer of dust. He wrinkled his nose and decided to pass. He cocked his head, listening to see if Stan was coming back yet. The house has silent. Dipper wandered over to Stan’s desk and was pleased to find that the desk chair swiveled. He hopped up on it and spun around for a few seconds, bored. The corner of one of the papers Stan had been reading caught his eye.

 

“Probably shouldn’t…” he muttered to himself. “But…” His curiosity getting the better of him, Dipper pulled the paper out of the stack, and began to read.

 

“ _Stanford Pines,_ ” began the letter.

 

“ _Notice how I didn’t say ‘Dear Stanford Pines’? That’s because I’m not the kind to lie. Now, I want to keep this short and sweet, so let’s get straight to business. I know your camp is failing. I knew it was failing when I visited last year, and I know it is failing now. Oh, and here’s another thing I know: I got a heck of a lot of money and you’re seven kinds of desperate!_

_“So here’s my proposal: sell me the deed to your property. Now, I know that might seem a little bit kuckoo at first, but think about it, Stanford! I get to, oh, I don’t know, remodel your land a little, and you get a nice bundle of money to retire on. It makes sense! Surely a man as self centered and conniving as yourself can’t turn down an offer like this._

_“Think about it. Get back to me._

_“Always better than you,_

_Gideon Gleeful_ ”

 

Dipper stared at the paper for a few seconds, thoughts racing. The letter raised a lot of questions, but the two that stuck out most in his mind were: _Who is Gideon Gleeful?_ and _Will Stan agree?_ It seemed likely that Stan had already decided to give the camp to this guy, considering what he’d said to them the other day at dinner, but Dipper couldn’t really believe that it was true. For one thing, the letter (and who even sent _letters_ anymore?) was dated from just a couple of days ago, and for another, it didn’t seem like something Stan would do, not unless he had absolutely no other alternative. _Maybe he doesn't_ , Dipper thought. He was still staring at the letter when he heard stomping sounds, presumably Stan coming downstairs. He quickly replaced the letter under the pile and hopped down from the chair.

 

Stan came crashing back into the room, carrying a huge cardboard box with ‘Contraband’ written on the side in faded Sharpie.

 

“That’s where you keep your cameras?” Dipper asked.

 

“Yup,” Stan said, setting it down and nearly pinning Dipper’s toes. “This is everything any camper has illegally brought into this camp.”

 

“Ever?” said Dipper, looking down at the box. “Isn’t the camp like thirty years old?”

 

“Uh-huh,” Stan answered. “Rules changed, obviously. Cameras are allowed now. But I never threw anything away.”

 

“Or gave anything back, obviously,” Dipper commented dryly, inspecting the box more closely.

 

The stuff on top seemed to be pretty modern; there were a few cell phones (including Pacifica’s) and a couple Swiss army knives. Underneath them, though, there were older things. A few disgusting pieces of candy, two Nokia phones, more Swiss army knives, wind up toys, an ancient Gameboy, and several cameras, plus a bunch of rolls of film.

 

“Oh, sweet!” Dipper cried gathering them up. “I can really have these?”

 

“Yep, they’re all yours, kid,” said Stan, and went back to sit behind his desk. Dipper made to stand up and leave when something tucked in the corner of the box caught his eye. It was one of those Flip video cameras, pretty battered, with a scratched casing. _It must have fallen into the bottom of the box when Stan brought it down,_ Dipper thought, and added it to his collection. A video camera would be a good thing to have. He could check to see if the batteries were working later.

 

“Thanks, Stan! Bye!” he called, and left, making sure that none of the four or five cameras he’d taken fell out of his arms.

  
“See ya later, kid! And tell that sister of yours to come visit me some time! We can go fishin’ or something,” Stan shouted back, his voice just reaching Dipper through the closed front door. He nodded even though Stan couldn’t see him and began the long walk back to his cabin, hoping he’d be able to find it on the first try this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate titles for this chapter included:  
> -I Quietly Ship Mabifica But Like Platonically Because They Are Twelve  
> -Yes, The Words 'An Ancient Gameboy' Are In This Chapter  
> -So Many Gobblewonker References
> 
> yeesh guys im so sorry for the really long delay in this chapter i had spring break this week and for friday and saturday i was driving down to georgia, and then we were Doing Georgia Things, and then i TRIED to write on Tuesday but I didn't get much done, and then i had COLLEGE TOURS. HONESTLY. college tours! why am i going on college tours??? im 15!!! oh, and then i got really, awfully, brain-meltingly sick. And then I had to drive back to new york. and im still sick. so if this chapter seems kind of incoherent im sorry i am very very sick right now


	5. The Gideon Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper discovers two things: 
> 
> 1\. The identity of Gideon Gleeful  
> 2\. Possible Proof

Campers had a free hour before and after dinner, which was a welcome break from the forced swim classes and team sports that made up the rest of the day. Dipper used the time before dinner that Tuesday to get organized, figuring out which film went into which camera and drawing up a game plan for the next few steps in his plan.

 

He had managed to grab two Polaroids, an old Nikon, and three cheap plastic disposable cameras. In terms of film, he had two packs of eight sheets for the Polaroids and three rolls for the Nikon. The disposable cameras were each full, but also slightly expired, so he wasn’t sure how those pictures would pan out. Sighing, he popped the battery case on the video camera open. Two AA’s were inside, and so he turned the camera on.

 

The screen flashed with light immediately, and soon Dipper was looking at his own legs through the camera lense. The little timer in the bottom right corner told him that he had only thirty seconds of memory left on the camera, which meant he’d have to delete whatever the previous owner had filmed before he could make any videos of his own.

 

“Hope it’s nothing too important,” he muttered, navigating to the video library. He flicked through the videos, not paying much attention to the thumbnails, which were all pretty blurry and dark anyway, except for one. The frozen image of sunlight on a wooden door and a homey looking sign that said “Pardon this garden” caught Dipper’s eye, and without thinking, he clicked play.

 

The image shook as whoever was holding the camera adjusted their grip.

 

“And here he is!” said a man with a Southern accent offscreen. His voice was tinny through the camera’s small speakers. “Lil Gideon, off to his first summer camp.” Dipper blinked, wondering if he’d heard right. _Gideon? Isn’t that the guy who wants to buy the camp?_ The camera panned down the door to reveal a small boy with hair so blonde that it was white. He was wearing a powder blue suit, patting his pockets and checking around himself in annoyance, not noticing the camera trained on him.

 

“Now where is my dang camera?” he muttered, then looked up. “Hey! That’s mine!” He reached up, trying to knock the camera out of the hands of who Dipper assumed to be his dad.

 

“Hang on Gideon, I’m just tryin’ to capture the memory!” protested the guy, and the camera shook violently as he jerked it out of reach. It stabilized again on Gideon stamping his foot in childish frustration.

 

“This ain’t about makin’ ‘memories’,” said Gideon on-screen. “This is about findin’ weaknesses in that stupid camp. It’s prime real estate! There’s no other place in town that we can set up as a permanent business!”

 

“I know all that,” said his dad. “Just tryin’ to have a little fun with it is all.”

 

“Well _don’t_ ,” Gideon snapped, and the footage blurred and jolted as he snatched the camera away from his father. “Now where is that stupid off button- oh, here it-” The clip ended, and Dipper was left staring in shock at the same thumbnail he’d started with. After a moment of frantic, confused thought (that’s Gideon, that’s him, he’s like nine oh my gosh), he quickly flipped to the next video in the library. It was very short, only fifteen seconds. The thumbnail was a blurry square of dull yellow. He clicked play.

 

The camera stayed perfectly still, and he could hear quiet muttering from the person who was holding it.

 

“C’mon, c’mon… Oh, heavens to Betsy,” whispered the person, and Dipper recognized him as Gideon. The screen slowly pulled into focus, and Dipper realized that he was looking through one of the stained glass windows in Stan’s office. The view inside was a little dim from the colored glass and the poor camera quality, but he could make out a desk and a chair and… was that a deer head mounted on the wall? _It’s a jackalope_ , he realized as the camera panned down and away. He shook his head in disbelief. Stan had a second office in his house, and he had a stuffed jackalope head inside of it. Amazing.

 

“Right,” said Gideon as the camera focused on a blocky object on the floor by the desk. Dipper thought it might be a safe, or maybe a cabinet of some kind. “Now I just gotta-”

 

“Hey Gideon!” called Wendy’s voice from offscreen. “What’re you doing?”

 

“Ah!” Gideon shouted in surprise, and the video ended.

 

Dipper hastily played the next four or five videos, but they were all the same. Gideon was looking in the window (usually from a different angle each time) and focusing on the safe, and then cutting out. It took a couple videos for Dipper to realize what Gideon was doing- building a complete picture of the room. He was too short to just look in himself, so he had to use a video.

 

“Oh my gosh,” Dipper said, staring down at the camera. “He’s gonna break in.”

 

He flipped to the next video and almost skipped it until he realized that it was much longer than the other ones. He clicked on it. It started out the same way that the others had, focusing in on the office and on the safe, when suddenly-

 

“Hey, kid!” cried a voice, very close to the camera’s speakers. The image flipped and shuddered as Gideon nearly dropped the camera. Dipper almost did the same; he knew that voice, and he had definitely not been expecting it.

 

“Whatcha doin’?” said Bill Cipher from inside the camera. The image stayed solidly on an off center view of the wall of the house, and Dipper realized that Gideon must be holding the camera behind his back.

 

“Nothin’!” Gideon squeaked nervously. Dipper could sympathize- being around Bill was nerve-wracking.

 

“Why are you out here? Didn’t you have swim class scheduled for today?” The camera shifted slightly, as if Gideon had turned his body around to keep it hidden.

 

“You can’t possibly have my schedule memorized,” Gideon said in disbelief. Bill laughed. It came through the camera speakers in a distorted kind of staticky nonsense, and Dipper frowned. _Yikes. This thing must be pretty old._

 

“Oh, I know LOTS of things, shortstack! _Lots of things_ ,” said Bill cheerily and, without warning, snatched the camera from behind Gideon’s back. Once the violent shaking stopped, Dipper found himself looking at Gideon’s pale, scared face (but only partially. Bill’s thumb blocked about a third of the screen). “A camera, huh?” Bill said, and Dipper got the impression that he’d already known what it was.

 

“Give it back!” shouted Gideon, and the camera was jerked high above him, held as far away as Bill could manage given that he was all of five foot-nothing.

 

Bill laughed, and the same strange static was there, layered underneath it. “Why should I, creampuff? Gimme one good reason.”

 

“I….I….”

 

“You don’t have one, do ya, kid?” Dipper could practically sense Bill’s ear-to-ear grin, even though he wasn’t on screen. “Hmm… how’s about this: I’ll give you this thing back and in return… you owe me a favor down the road.”

 

Dipper’s mouth dropped open. Bill was making a deal. A literal, actual demon deal was going on right in front of him! Well, in the camera, in a video taken a year ago, but still. He couldn’t believe it- this could be his proof!

 

“A favor?” said Gideon warily.

 

“Yyyyeeeeeeup,” Bill replied easily, drawing out the vowels and ending the word with a loud pop on the ‘p’. “Sort of an ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ kinda deal.”

 

“What kinda favor?” asked Gideon, looking up at the camera with narrowed eyes. _He’s smart,_ Dipper thought. _He’s not gonna walk into this without knowing exactly what he’s in for._

 

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.” Bill sounded a little annoyed; Gideon was asking too many questions.

 

“No. I wanna know now,” said Gideon, folding his arms stubbornly. Bill sighed.

 

“Kid, I’m doin’ you a favor by not looking too closely at this camera, if you catch my drift. If you keep pestering me, I might just have to look at see whatever weird little secrets you’ve got stashed up in this thing. Capiche?” Gideon paled. The implications were very clear. Dipper couldn’t tell if Bill had any suspicions as to what Gideon was planning, or if it was just an empty threat. Gideon, however, seemed unwilling to take the risk.

 

“...Yeah. Just gimme the camera back.”

 

“Ah-ah-ah!” Bill said admonishingly. “We have to shake on it.” He extended his right hand into the frame, the only piece of him that had been visible during the entire video. “Do we have a deal?”

 

“Okay,” Gideon sighed, and placed his milk white hand in Bill’s brown one. They shook on it. There was a beat of silence. “Now give it back!”

 

“Fine,” said Bill. The image spun and twisted as he tossed the camera to Gideon, who kept it pointed at the ground. “Have fun, kid!”

 

The video ended. Dipper stared at the thumbnail in disbelief. He didn’t know what to feel- pity for Gideon, forced into making a deal with the devil? Or worried, since the guy currently threatening his great uncle’s business seemed to be partnered with a real, almost-confirmed demon? _Probably a mix of both,_ he thought ruefully. He flicked to the next video. He felt almost like he was watching a show on Netflix or Hulu, where the website just loaded up the next episode and he felt compelled to watch it.

 

The video started with running, and with nighttime. Dipper could see black shoes flashing against almost-black forest ground, and heard heavy panting from Gideon, who he assumed to be holding the camera.

 

“I gotcha now, Cipher,” muttered Gideon, stopping for a second. The camera stayed pointed in front of Gideon, upside down, almost like he’d wrapped the strap around his wrist and let it hang. Dipper wondered if he was even aware that it was on. Gideon spoke again. “Two-timin’ demonic bastard. I know his secret!” He giggled to himself and set off again, slower this time. The camera swung freely, and through the upside-down shakiness Dipper thought he recognized where Gideon was- the path that led to the clearing that Mabel and her friends had found last week, with the strange carving on the tree stump. His heart thudded. Gideon had reached the same conclusion that Dipper had, and he was going to confront Bill. He was actually going to do it.

 

The swinging camera caught a blueish-white light in the distance, like someone had one of those bright fluorescent camping lanterns turned onto the highest setting. Gideon must have seen it too, because he started walking faster. The light grew brighter and brighter, larger and larger, until Dipper realized that it was, in fact, a lantern, pointed at the entrance to the path so that it blinded anybody coming at the clearing straight on and cast everything else into deep shadow. Behind it a dark shape was moving.

 

Gideon didn’t hesitate for a second, stepping beyond the lantern and into the dark clearing. It was too dark for the camera to pick much up, and the tiny square screen became totally black. Dipper turned up the volume. Something rustled in the darkness and by the sound of it, Gideon had whipped around to see what it was.

 

“Give it up, Bill!” shouted Gideon. “I know you’re here!”

 

A twig snapped. Gideon’s clothes rustled as he moved to follow it. There was silence for a moment, punctuated with Gideon’s ragged, nervous breathing. Dipper thought that he was starting to realize he had made a mistake. More silence. Then suddenly a voice, crystal clear, spoke.

 

“You’re out late, kid.”

 

Dipper, even though he was safely removed from the entire scene, jumped in surprise. Gideon gave a small, terrified shriek. He pulled himself together quickly, though, and addressed the darkness with surprising bravery for such a little kid.

 

“I know whatcha are, Bill!” he cried. “And I’m not scared of you.”

 

“What I am?” said Bill, confused. “What I ‘am’ is seriously annoyed that you’re out of bed so late. It’s eleven p.m!”

 

“No,” Gideon said, drawing it out. “Don’t play dumb, Cipher. I know you’re a demon!”

 

There was a beat of silence before Bill began to laugh hysterically, short, sharp sounds echoing through the camera’s speakers. That same weird staticky feedback was layered underneath it. Dipper tapped the camera’s speakers in annoyance, trying to make it go away.

 

“I can’t believe- you actually- _ha!_ Kid, you’re too much!”

 

“I’m serious. I know what you are, _demon!_ ” Gideon insisted, his voice climbing up an octave with every word. “And I wanna make another deal.”

 

Bill stopped laughing, but the amusement stayed in his voice. “ _Another_ deal? What was the first one?”

 

“This charade is getting old,” Gideon hissed. “I demand that you take me seriously!”

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Bill quickly, still chuckling a little bit. “You mean the deal where I give you the camera back, and you do me a favor? Heck, kid, I was just gonna make you clean the toilets or something.” He laughed again. “But seriously, Gideon, I’m not making another ‘deal’ with you. Not until we’ve wrapped up the last one. Go to bed.”

 

“No! Not until you hear out my demands!”

 

Bill sighed. When he spoke again, his voice was louder and closer to the camera, as if he crouched or kneeled down to Gideon’s level. “Kid, I mean this with total respect, I really do, but as your counselor I gotta ask. Do you have any meds or something that you should be taking?”

 

“No, I do not,” said Gideon. “I’ve simply solved a mystery that was right in front of me for weeks! Now tell me what favor you want so that we can make a new deal.”

 

Bill laughed again, and this time the feedback was so strong that it almost covered his actual voice. Dipper shook the camera in frustration. “Fine. You wanna know what the favor is, shortstack? You really wanna do this?”

 

“Finally!” exclaimed Gideon. “Yes. Tell me what you want.”

 

“What I want…” Bill said quietly. He sounded calm, almost contemplative. No trace of laughter was left in his voice. In the silence that followed, there was a faint clattering close to the camera’s microphone. Dipper realized that Gideon had finally turned it right side up and was holding it up to capture the scene, as if it would have made any difference. Upside down darkness looks exactly the same when it’s flipped around.

 

“Well, demon?” demanded Gideon. His voice shook ever so slightly. It was the first time he’d shown any weakness in the conversation, and Dipper immediately felt apprehensive. _Oh no._

 

A single, glowing eye filled the screen, its pupil a black slit and the cornea completely blue. Gideon shrieked and jumped back, and the eye fell out of the frame.

 

“ _ **I  w a n t  y o u  t o  l e a v e .**_ ” said Bill’s voice, expect it wasn’t really Bill’s voice. It was deeper and more serious, and the static that the camera picked up when he laughed had returned full-force, weaving through his words so much that they were almost drowned out. Dipper’s heart jumped into his throat. _Proof. This is proof. Oh my gosh, I have actual, real proof._

“L-leave? Why would I ever- Why would I do that?” Gideon stammered, trying to keep calm and stay in control of the situation.

 

“ _ **B e c a u s e  w e  h a v e  a  d e a l .**_ ”

 

“Wha- That’s not fair!”

 

Bill chuckled. It was entirely static. “ _ **D e m o n s  d o n ' t  p l a y  f a i r**_ **.** " And then, suddenly, his voice was normal again; high pitched, peppy, and completely human. “Anyway, Gids, I’ll be taking that camera. It’s contraband!” With a ‘yeoink’ sound effect, he plucked the camera from Gideon’s hands- or at least, Dipper assumed he did, since he could now see the faint outline of Gideon’s hair from the lantern behind him.

 

“You can’t do that! You let me keep it last time!”

 

“Hmm, did I? Oversight,” said Bill nonchalantly. “Also, I’m so sad to hear that you won’t be staying with us for the rest of the summer. Family emergency, right?” Gideon was silent. “Ah, well, maybe next year, right kid? You coming back next year?” There was a steely undertone to his words; Dipper got the impression that there was only one right answer that Gideon could give.

 

“I… No,” Gideon ground out.

 

“Atta boy,” Bill crowed, and the video ended.

 

Dipper stared down in shock at the video camera, almost unable to process what he’d just seen. This Gideon kid was the guy who was trying to shut down the camp- and he wasn’t even ten years old! And he’d actually gone to the camp, and met Bill and… And reached the same conclusion Dipper had. _So I’m not totally crazy,_ he thought with relief. _Someone else saw it too._ Someone else had _literally_ seen it, though. Gideon had captured Bill’ true demonic nature on video- and Dipper had that video right there in his hand! But what to do with it… Expose Bill? Confront him? Show Grunkle Stan, and nobody else? Show _Mabel_ , and nobody else? He sighed, flopping back onto his bed. _This is complicated._

 

Thankfully, he was spared having to worry about it for the moment as the now-familiar Klaxon alarm rang outside the door, signalling dinner. Dipper got up and stashed the video camera, as well as the other Polaroids and Nikons, under his bed, and left.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did research on cameras for this you guys. research. on cameras. i have exams in two days and im fuckign researching what kind of film a nikon needs what the fuck
> 
> also sorry for the delay yikes im just slower and slower with the chapters arent i
> 
> im sorry im working on it aaaaaaaa
> 
> love u all thanks for reading


	6. Luck Ain't Got Anything To Do With It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modified Capture the Flag. Magic. Hot dogs. Plot. Mabifica undertones? Fleeing the scene. Posting this here. Not updating for a week because ~technically I'm busyyyyyy~

A stream of kids and counselors was already winding its way down from the cabins to the dining hall. Dipper ran through them, trying to keep an eye out for both Mabel and Bill- one to find and one to avoid. He resorted to jumping a few times to try and see over the heads of the people who surrounded him, and after a couple of minutes he finally spotting a fluffy mass of brown hair and a flash of pink ahead of him.

As he made his way closer, he realized that Mabel wasn’t entirely alone. Grenda and Candy were walking a little ahead of her, both of them sneaking glances backwards at the person she was talking to, who Dipper was only mildly surprised to see was Pacifica Northwest. He sighed internally, already debating the best way to get Mabel away from her. He _had_ to tell her about the video- it was his _proof_.

“Mabel!” he called out, reaching forward to grab her shoulder. “Mabel, I- I gotta show you something.” He drew his hand back when he realized that Mabel had her arm slung over Pacifica’s shoulders protectively, and that Pacifica had her head ducked and was sniffling suspiciously. “Is… Is everything okay?” he asked hesitantly. Mabel looked up, biting her lip.

“Yeah, Dip, everything’s fine,” she said, trying for her usual upbeat tone and failing miserably. “But could you just- just leave us alone for a second? Um- there’s just-”

“Oh, _whatever!”_ Pacifica interrupted, finally raising her head. Her eyes were shiny and reddened. “Just go, okay? I don’t even know why I-” She cut herself off with a sharp laugh. It sounded like crystal wine glasses breaking over sharp rocks. “See you guys later,” she mumbled, and turned sharply away, disappearing off the trail and into the woods before Mabel could stop her.

“Geez, what’s her problem?” Dipper asked, walking on. “Anyway, Mabel, I found something you really gotta see-” He stopped, realizing that his sister was no longer with him. Grenda and Candy turned back too, concerned. The four of them parted the flow of people like rocks in a river, although it was growing thinner as the crowd passed them by. “Mabel?” Dipper asked, walking back to where Mabel had stopped.

“I’m going after her,” Mabel said quietly. Her hands twisted in the sleeves of her sweater. Dipper scoffed impatiently.

“Mabes, c’mon, it’s- it’s getting dark out soon. And it’s _Pacifica_. She’s probably upset because her dad cut her allowance by a couple hundred dollars or something.” He chuckled a little bit, but nobody joined in. Mabel groaned.

“Dipper, can you just- You don’t understand. She really shouldn’t… She really shouldn’t be alone right now. I’m going after her.” Dipper’s heart sank. She was really serious. He sighed, beginning to feel like a bit of a jerk.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he said, trying to make peace. “But I just found something- something huge. You gotta let me tell you, Mabel, you gotta!” She shook her head, already backing away, towards the woods. The sun was starting to turn the trees the palest shade of orange.

“Tell me after dinner, okay? We should be back by then.”

Dipper swallowed nervously, apprehension pooling in his stomach although he didn’t know why. “And if you’re not?” Mabel smiled weakly, turning into the forest.

“We will be.” And then she was gone, and Dipper was feeling more empty inside than he reasonably should have.

Candy sighed from behind him. “Come on Dipper. We should go to dinner.”

“Yeah,” agreed Grenda. “As bad as that stuff is hot, it’ll be worse cold.” Dipper nodded reluctantly and shoved his hands into his pockets, following the two of them along the path back to the dining hall. He could feel the information he’d just learned pinging around inside his brain. He had to _tell_ someone. Sure, he could tell Grenda and Candy- and they might even be interested in what he had to say. But he wanted to tell Mabel first. For some reason, it was important that she be the first to hear about it, the first to believe it as he believed it. He had to have someone on his side before he could do anything, and he wanted it to be Mabel.

The dinner turned out to be some form of burnt hot dog. The buns were a little stale and the meat was a little grey, but overall it was pretty edible. Plus, Dipper liked burnt hot dogs, so it was a double-win. He kept one eye on Bill though, sitting at the counselor’s table like always. He was giggling quietly to himself and licking his lips too much, but since his current activities didn’t include _glowing_ or _threatening children in the woods_ , Dipper dismissed him as a threat for the time being. It was still weird to sit there and see him out of the corner of his eye with the knowledge of what he was, of what he had done, but Dipper managed to act normal. Mostly.

As the meal wound down, an awkward silence descended on the dining hall. Normally one of the counselors would stand up and announce that everyone was free to clean up their plates and go, but that hadn’t happened yet. Wendy and her friends just sat quietly, occasionally looking at each other in silent confusion. Eventually, Bill leaned over and said, in an exaggerated whisper that carried through the room easily, “ _Psst!_ Did you forget to get Stan down here?”

Wendy smacked her forehead and Nate let his head drop down onto the table with a quiet, “Crap.” Lee sighed and stood up.

“I’ll get him.” He ran out the back door of the dining hall, through the attached kitchen, resulting in a startled “Hey!” from the cook (who Dipper still had not seen). The campers exchanged looks with each other as Lee began shouting, “Mr. Pines! Mr. Piiiiiiines!” in the distance, growing fainter. After a couple minutes Grenda gasped quietly in realization.

“Oh no- is it- oh no,” she muttered, covering her face with one hand.

“What is it?” Candy asked.

“It’s-”

“CAPTURE THE FLAG!” Stan Pines boomed, slamming open the front door of the dining hall. A couple kids shrieked in surprise, and Bill laughed quietly. A breathless Lee appeared behind Stan as he made his way up to the front of the room, as he had on the first day. “That’s right, kids! Mandatory group activities! They should _pay_ me to come up with this stuff. Oh wait! They do!” He took a moment to laugh at his own joke. Nobody else did.

“Very good, sir!” Wendy called sarcastically from the back.

“Can it, Corduroy.”

“Yessir,” she replied smartly, grinning. Nate almost spat out his water, giggling quietly into his hand. Stan rolled his eyes and continued.

“Anyway. There’ll be two teams, each led by a counselor, and the objective is to yadda yadda yadda, you all know what capture the flag is, I won’t waste my breath. BUT WAIT,” he added in a louder voice. “The twist is that tonight, your counselor team leaders are no longer your counselors. They are…” he paused for effect, “MONSTERS!” A cheesy scream sound effect echoed from the kitchen, as if from laptop speakers. “Thanks, Soos.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Pines!”

“The flags in this game are not exactly flags, per say,” Stan continued. “They are the monsters themselves! Capture the other team’s monster and bring them to the other side, and your team wins! But be careful- the monsters are allowed to fight back.” He whipped his fez off of his head in a swooping, dramatic gesture. “And since none of the counselors volunteered for these positions, we’re assigning parts the old fashioned way- luck of the draw.” He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a handful of paper slips, dropping them into the hat and shaking it vigorously. Slowly, dramatically, he reached into the hat and pulled out one piece, raising it above his head. Dipper was reminded suddenly of the scene where Dumbledore chose the champions in the Goblet of Fire movie. Stan slowly unfolded the paper and scanned it.

“The first monster is… Wendy!” he declared. Wendy groaned loudly and lowered her head to the table with a thunk. “Choose your monster, Corduroy.”

She sighed loudly and lifted her head back up. “Uh… I dunno… I guess… Werewolf.”

“You always choose werewolf!” Thompson complained.

“That’s cuz werewolves are cool, not that you’d know much about that,” Wendy shot back, and the whole group laughed.

“It’s true,” Thompson admitted, poking at his charcoal colored hot dog. Stan slowly reached into the hat for the second time, and then several things happened in very quick succession.

Dipper looked at Bill.

Bill looked at Dipper.

Bill winked.

Bill’s left index finger, resting on his lap under the table and out of sight for anyone who wasn’t looking at it, pointed at Stan and was surrounded with blue fire for a half-second.

Dipper blinked.

Stan pulled a paper out of the hat.

Stan spoke. “Bill, you’re up!”

Muttering and whispering broke out, and Wendy’s jaw dropped open.

“What! I’m up against Bill? Stan, that’s not fair!” she shouted, but Stan just shrugged.

“It’s the luck of the draw, Wendy. Can’t do anything about _luck_ ,” Bill said happily, putting strange emphasis on the word _luck_. Dipper frowned, already doubting what he’d seen. _Could Bill have really… No. No way._

“Stop gloating, Cipher. What’s your monster?” Stan demanded. Bill shrugged casually.

“Same as always. I’ll take fae.” Dipper frowned again in surprise. He had been so sure that Bill would pick _demon_ … But perhaps that would have been too obvious. He shifted in his seat, trying to see the faces of the other counselors. Tambry was slumped on the table in boredom, and Robbie was nearly mirroring her. Thompson was sadly eating his hot dog. Lee and Nate were trying to comfort Wendy, but weren’t doing a very good job. He felt his heart sink. The fact that _Wendy_ , of all people, was intimidated by going up against Bill in a game that would mostly be played by other people… it was worrying. He realized with a start that the way he was thinking about Wendy at the moment was purely platonic, and that, in fact, he hadn’t thought about his crush on her in days. _Huh. So there’s that._

__

“Right,” said Stan, clapping his hands and jolting Dipper out of his thoughts. “Teams will be assigned like this: Bill’s cabin will be on Wendy’s side, and Wendy’s will be on Bill’s. Should spice things up. As for the rest of you, odd numbered cabins to Bill, and evens to Wendy. A and B cabins to Wendy. D cabin to Bill, since he’s already got C. That should, uh, that should cover it.” He grinned. “TO YOUR BATTLESTATIONS!”

Nobody moved.

“Uh, Mr. Pines? The kids have an hour of free time after dinner,” Thompson pointed out.

“Not today they don’t!” Stan replied. “Go, children! Fight each other! Destroy property so I can bill your parents!”

A couple kids near the door stood up and looked around in confusion, unwilling to be the only ones moving but also unwilling to disobey Stan. Suddenly, Wendy leapt up onto her bench, throwing Lee and Nate to the sides.

“LET’S DO THIS!” she shouted, and was met with a few whoops and cheers from her team. “TEAM WEREWOLF MEET ME IN THE GAME FIELD GO GO GO GO GO!”

Energized by her enthusiasm, more cheers and yells sprang up from the crowd. Wendy’s whole team, including Dipper, began to stream out of the dining hall, with their monster leader at their front. He spared one glance back at Grenda and Candy, who had still not moved. Nobody on Bill’s team had. Half the camp sat still, uncomfortable on the wooden benches. His last view of the dining hall was the last of the other counselors sneaking out the back door and Bill standing up slowly from his place at the counselor table. Then he was sucked back into the team, into the game, that weird buzzing excitement that almost creates a hivemind in a crowd.

“Were-wolves, were-wolves, were-wolves!” Wendy began chanting, and the rest of the team joined in as they made their way down the trail that led to the cabins and, eventually, the game field. She seemed determined to win the game through sheer team spirit and enthusiasm, and it was working. Suddenly, Dipper noticed that they were walking past the section of forest that Pacifica and Mabel had run off into. He slowed down a little bit to see if he could see any sign of them, but was quickly hurried on by Wendy’s call of, “Dipper! Keep up, man!”

_I’m sure they’ll be fine_ , he assured himself, and hurried to catch back up with the others. It was about a ten minute walk to the field, and along the way Dipper didn’t see anybody but the crowd he was walking with. Nobody from the other team was in sight, and, more importantly, neither were Mabel and Pacifica. They passed by Cabin C, but the lights were off. They weren’t there. It was almost dark.

Once they got to the field, Wendy gestured for them all to gather in a circle around her, and cleared her throat.

“Here’s the deal, okay? You can tag members of the other team by touching them. Arm, leg, I don’t care. If you get tagged, come back here and someone will give you a mark with this Sharpie.” She held up a marker. “Three strikes and you’re out, got it?” Everyone nodded. “Good. Okay, since I’m the prize here, I’m gonna move around a lot. Bill’s gonna be doing the same. But I’ll tell one of the older kids where I’m gonna be at all times so if you get hurt or you’re in trouble, ask around until you find someone who can point you in my direction.” She lowered her voice suddenly and they all leaned closer to hear her. “If you catch Bill, bring him straight here. Don’t talk to him. Don’t let him stop for anything. I’ve played against him before and he’s tricky, okay, so watch yourselves. Travel in groups. And one of you has to stay here with the Sharpie. Got it? ” There was a chorus of yeses and yeahs. “Great! GO KICK SOME CIPHER BUTT!”

She flapped her hands at them, shooing them towards the edges of the clearing, except for one boy, who she sat in the middle of the field and handed the Sharpie to. He seemed relieved to be out of the action. Dipper moved to leave, but stopped when Wendy grabbed his arm.

“Huh?”

“Dipper, listen, is it cool if you’re the one who knows where I’m gonna hide?” Wendy asked him seriously.

“I-I thought you were going to ask one of the older kids,” Dipper stuttered, confused.

“Dude, the only kids older than you on this team are my brothers and, uh, yeah. Not gonna happen,” she snorted.

Dipper frowned. “You don’t trust your own siblings?”

Wendy shrugged. “Who does? Anyway, I’m gonna go hide by the swimming pool for half an hour and then after that I’m gonna cycle between out back of my cabin and inside the kitchen with Mcgucket. Can you remember that?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Dipper said hesitantly.

“Dude, dude,” said Wendy, looking him dead in the eyes. “You are the best, man. See ya!” She disappeared into the trees, taking a roundabout route to the swimming pool. Dipper looked after her and sighed. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about her, but he could still admit that she was a pretty amazing person. He looked around and realized that night had almost completely finished falling. Taking a deep breath, he began to run, plunging into the forest, ready to win- or at least find Mabel and Pacifica, and maybe even show them the video.

He walked aimlessly around the woods for about fifteen minutes, afraid of calling out or doing anything to attract someone’s attention. A few times he heard or saw people moving in the distance, and would freeze like a deer in the headlights until they were gone. Mostly the people passed on, going off to find Wendy or Bill or who knew what. Eventually though, he heard the snapping sound of twigs and the rustling of leaves close by, and getting closer. He froze, debating whether to reveal his position by running or let them come and hope they passed him by. Before he could decide, they were close enough for him to hear their ragged breathing- two sets. He tensed, but relaxed almost immediately as Mabel and Pacifica crashed through the trees, knocking into him and almost bowling him over.

“Ow!”

Mabel staggered back, her hold on Pacifica’s hand dragging her away from Dipper as well. She squinted at him through the darkness, her face smudged with mud and dirt. Pacifica’s leggings were ripped. Leaves littered their hair.

Dipper gaped at them. “What happened to you guys?” Mabel looked at him for a few seconds, shaking her head weakly.

**  
**“Dipper,” she said, holding Pacifica’s hand tighter, “You were right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha! ha aha aha ahahhhaha ah!!!! ive been looking forward to writing the next couple chapters lmao LMAO this was like........one of the original things me and daveyjackobs were joking about back when i first thought of this au haha
> 
> also i super love monsterfalls so i like.............snuck it into this chapter a little. a lot. haha. im trash. love yall bye


	7. Uh Oh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just need to let out your feelings to someone. And sometimes, right after that, you need to get scared of bears.

Pacifica was crying. That was the only thing going through Mabel’s mind as she stood in the doorway of the cabin, her almost-dry arts and crafts project that she had been going to hang up held loosely in her hands. Pacifica was _crying._ She was sitting on her bed with her knees hugged tight across her chest, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders and a crumpled piece of paper in one hand, and she was _crying_. It only took a second of stunned silence before Mabel’s instincts kicked in. She walked forward hesitantly and sat down at the foot of Pacifica’s bed, waiting for the explosion of anger and embarrassment that she had come to expect when Pacifica showed any weakness accidentally. Instead there was nothing but crying.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. Pacifica shrugged without looking up and remained silent except for a few hiccuping sobs. “You can tell me, you know,” continued Mabel. “I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t tell anybody else, if you didn’t want me to.” There was no response from Pacifica, save for more sniffling noises that she was obviously trying to muffle. The paper in her hand crinkled as she clutched it tighter.

 

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Mabel didn’t move or speak. She hardly even dared to breathe too loud. She just sat and watched Pacifica, who, after a while, finally stopped crying. It took another couple of minutes before she lifted her head hesitantly, eyes red and puffy, nose and cheeks blotchy. Her face crumpled into a frown as she looked at Mabel on th other end of the bed.

 

“Oh. You’re still here.”

 

Mabel nodded and bit her lip. “Pacifica, seriously. Please tell me what’s wrong!” She leaned forward a little bit, placing her project on the mattress between them.

 

“What’s that?” Pacifica asked distractedly, looking down at it.

 

“Don’t change the subject, Paz! What is going on with you?” Mabel said in exasperation, then doubled back on herself. “Actually, it’s just a project I was working on with, um, coffee instead of normal watercolors? You can have it if you want.” She pushed the paper closer to Pacifica, a little nervously. She hadn’t really given anybody except Dipper her art before. Pacifica stared at it for a long moment, to the point where Mabel was almost tempted to take it back, before she slowly reached forward and picked it up.

 

“Is that a… a pig?” she said, frowning a little.

 

“Yup! That’s Waddles. I won him at the county fair last year,” answered Mabel. Pacifica looked up, interested.

 

“Really? How?”

 

Mabel shrugged. “I had to guess his weight.” She smiled a little, remembering. “I only had one shot.”

 

Pacifica leaned forward a little, letting herself get invested in the story. “How’d you get it right?”

 

Mabel shrugged. “Got lucky, I guess.” She grinned. “Also, the guy running the booth kinda gave it away accidentally.” She readjusted herself, ready to begin telling the whole story properly- right down to Dipper beaning himself in the head with a baseball not once, but _six times_ \- and Pacifica moved as well to accommodate her. In doing so she opened her hand unconsciously, and the crumpled piece of paper fell out of it and onto the blanket between them, unfolding slightly.

 

Both of them looked down at it as if it was a bomb. Mabel’s eyes flicked quickly up to Pacifica’s and back down again. She opened her mouth to ask why, exactly, Pacifica had a letter signed with a cold _“Mr. and Mrs. Northwest”_ , but closed it with a snap when Pacifica’s eyes filled with tears again. Mabel’s stomach dropped. She’d only known Pacifica for a few days, but she still considered them friends (or at least getting there) and it hurt to see her so distressed with no idea how to make her feel better.

 

“Paz…” she said, reaching forward. Pacifica jerked back, scooting further into the corner of the bed.

 

“Don’t _call_ me that!” Her voice was shaking, and she gave a tiny scream of embarrassed anger. “I don’t- I didn’t want- _Ugh!”_ She pushed the letter towards Mabel with one foot. “Go on, read it. I know you’re like, dying to or whatever.” She hunched her shoulders and ducked her head again, concentrating very hard on not letting any tears fall.

 

Mabel sighed, pushing the letter back towards Pacifica. She thought she knew why it was being offered so insistently; Controlling when and to whom her personal information got revealed was important to Pacifica. She’d rather be in the room and willingly giving up her secrets than have Mabel discover them somewhere else. _Knowing_ wasn’t the same as _agreeing_ , however, and Mabel wasn’t going to pry into Pacifica’s personal life just because Pacifica felt she had no other option but to let her.

 

“Please, Pacifica. Just tell me yourself,” she said, trying to sound encouraging, but not too pushy. _Am I being too pushy?_ she wondered briefly, but shut herself down immediately. Pacifica needed to talk about this, she really did. All she needed was a little prompting. Pacifica sighed raggedly and flinched as her tears began to plop down, one by one, on the thick watercolor paper in her lap.

 

“I’m- I’m sorry,” she stuttered, quickly trying to brush the water off of the painting and smearing the coffee stains a little. “Oh my god, oh my god, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” She cut herself off with that same frustrated half-scream again, and Mabel gently reached over and took the painting from her hands before she upset herself even more.

 

“It’s okay, it’s really okay!” she insisted, trying to sound cheerful. “Look, it even- It looks better this way!” Pacifica only glared at her through watery eyes, and silence descended on them for a few minutes- a scratchy, uncomfortable silence. It tickled at Mabel’s throat, pushing her to speak, to cough, but at the same time it kept her mouth closed tight. Pacifica kept her head lowered, blinking her eyes furiously and folding her knees against her chest again. After a while she inhaled slowly, and spoke.

 

“It’s. Um. It’s from my parents. Which I normally wouldn’t be this upset about but it’s less about who the letter is from and more… more what’s _in_ it,” she said quickly, almost whispering. “They don’t want me coming back here anymore.” Mabel blinked twice, quickly, in surprise. Pacifica sighed, her voice choking up again. “They used to donate money- a _lot_ of money- every year to the camp and now… Now they’re gonna stop. And they’re gonna pull me out of the camp ‘cause they say I’m getting too _common_ and what does that even _mean-_ Oh, geez, what if the camp shuts down and it’s all my fault-”

 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Mabel said, scooting a little closer . “It’s really not your fault, I swear. Your _parents_ are acting kinda bananas, yeah, but _you_ didn’t do anything.” She bit her lip unconsciously, then firmly told herself to stop. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Too much would lead to chapped lips, and those were the _worst. Focus, Mabel,_ she told herself, and opened her mouth to say what would be, hopefully, inspiring and incredible words of encouragement. Before she could even begin, however, the blaring foghorn signalling dinner cut her off. They both jumped, and Pacifica blushed, embarrassed at her skittishness.

 

“Let’s just go, okay?” she muttered, acting as if tears weren’t still running down her face. Mabel nodded silently, and they both set off down the path. After a just a couple of seconds, Pacifica bowed her head and kept crying, quietly. Mabel put an arm around her shoulders without even hesitating, letting Paz get it all out. Who knew when she’d last had a chance to cry like this, judging from what Mabel knew of her family. Candy and Grenda caught up with them after a couple of minutes, panting a little from whatever game they’d been playing out in the field.

 

“What’s- oh,” said Grenda, seeing Pacifica. Candy raised an eyebrow at Mabel, asking a silent question. Mabel shook her head, mouthing _no_ firmly, and the other two nodded, moving on to walk slightly ahead of them. It was quiet for only a few seconds before Dipper showed up.

 

Mabel sighed quietly as he started to speak, all wild exclamations and loud hand motions. Pacifica had tensed up as soon as she heard him, her discomfort and embarrassment radiating off her like heat, but Dipper didn’t pick up on how much she wanted to be left alone. He was observant, but he was also completely tactless, and Mabel groaned as Pacifica pushed away from her and off the path. Dipper walked on, oblivious, but she stayed still, looking into the forest. She could _just_ see Pacifica’s purple leggings disappearing into the leaves. If she ran after her now, she could get to her before she was completely gone, and maybe they could both make it back in time for dinner.

 

“You gotta let me tell you, Mabel, you gotta!”

 

_Ugh._ She loved Dipper, she really did, but couldn’t he see that Pacifica needed her right now? She was totally willing to listen to his theories and rants later, but at this moment, this last second before she lost sight of Paz completely, she needed him to be quiet, and to let her go.

 

“Tell me after dinner, okay? We should be back by then,” she said, trying to placate him. He was silent for a moment, either from shock or because he hadn’t heard her. She snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. He was frowning slightly, looking into the forest. A flicker of something that looked like fear danced across his face for a second.

 

“And if you’re not?”

 

She had to smile at that, that protective anxiousness that was as much a part of Dipper as his hair. _Always the worry-wart._ She looked back at the forest.

 

“We will be.”

 

And then she set off, pushing through the leafy bushes and shoving aside branches, not letting herself stop for a second and realize what a colossally bad idea this was. She didn’t know these woods, and Pacifica did. There was no telling if Mabel would even be able to _find_ her in this mess of trees and underbrush, let alone convince her to come back in time to eat something (emphasis on _something_ \- honestly, what was in the food here?). After a few minutes of walking, she paused and looked back. She could no longer see the path, but in her stillness she could hear Pacifica, snapping twigs and rustling leaves ahead of her and to the right. She headed in the direction of the sounds.

 

After about ten minutes of walking, Pacifica stopped walking- or at least Mabel hoped she had. The noises had stopped, so she assumed that Paz had, too. The sun was dipping lower in the sky and she absently noted that they were missing a pretty big chunk of dinner. She stopped walking and sighed, looking around. The tall fir trees rose over her head, red trunks spiralling up and up and up, almost forever (it seemed like). She realized that here, at the bottom of the forest floor, it would get dark much faster than out in a clearing or open space. She began to feel nervous.

 

“Pacifica?” Mabel called. “Paz, are you out here?” A few birds whistled in the distance, but that was the only response she got. She sighed, twisting up her sweater sleeves again. _Even if we get lost, Dipper knows we’re out here. He won’t let them leave us out here all night,_ she thought, trying to reassure herself. If she was being truthful, however, she could totally see Dipper getting hooked on a new theory or discovery and completely forgetting about anything else for hours. Maybe even _days_. _“Paz!”_ she yelled again, more frantically. “C’mon, come out! I know you’re around here somewhere!”

 

There was a faint tapping sound further off to her right. She didn’t know if Paz had made the sound on purpose- or if it was even Pacifica at all- but it was the only lead she had. She crashed through the bushes and sticks, sucking in sharp breaths whenever a thorn or branch would snap back and cut her leg (which was often). After a few minutes of fumbling, she found Pacifica huddled up in the roots of a tree, absently tapping out a rhythm with a stick on the wood of the tree. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyes were still red and her nose was runny. A few thin red thorn cuts like the ones Mabel had gotten decorated her hands.

 

She looked up. “Why are you following me?” It sounded like she was trying for ‘accusatory’ but fell flat and landed on ‘plaintive’.

 

“Pacifica…” Mabel sighed, crouching down next to her. “You can’t just cut yourself off like this. I think you need to… I dunno. Talk this through with someone.”

 

Pacifica snorted. “And that someone is you?”  
  


“Well, yeah.” Mabel shrugged. “You see anyone else around?” That got her a tiny smile from Paz, and her heart soared. Little victories, right? She shifted into a more comfortable position. “Seriously. I’m here to listen.”

 

Pacifica tucked her knees up and rested her head on top of them, staring ahead of her. She chewed on her lip a little bit and Mabel wanted to tell her about the chapped lips thing, but stopped herself. _Now isn’t really a good time_. After a couple minutes Mabel began to think that she wasn’t going to talk after all, but then she opened her mouth and began.

 

“When I was little- I dunno, eight or something- I found out about this camp from a flyer that blew into our backyard. It wasn’t supposed to be there. It was dirty and crumpled up and gross but… I was interested. I begged my parents to take me and somehow, by some _miracle,_ they agreed.” She sighed, shaking her head a little bit. “And when I got here, that first time… it was nice, it really was. It wasn’t like it is this year. This year is… different. And I was wondering why, but now I guess I know.” Her voice cracked a little bit and she ducked her head down for a second before continuing. “My parents were paying for all of it. _All_ of it, Mabel.” Her hands clenched into fists. “The- the food, the facilities, some of the staff’s _paychecks,_ oh my god-” She cut herself off suddenly.

 

“Pacifica,” said Mabel quietly. “What… what are you saying?”

 

“I’m saying that they’re withdrawing their funding and pulling me out of camp and this whole place is gonna go under!” cried Pacifica. “It’s all my fault. If I- if i was just _nicer_ to them, if I did what they wanted more maybe they’d-”

 

“Paz, none of this is your fault,” Mabel interrupted. “This is _all_ your parents! You’ve got nothing to do with it. You didn’t ask them to do it, did you?”

 

_“No,”_ said Pacifica vehemently. Mabel gave her a smile.

 

“See? So it isn’t your fault.” Pacifica shot her a look that said she was still unconvinced, but she didn’t look like she was about to cry anymore, so Mabel counted it as a win.

 

“And anyway, I already knew about the camp closing,” she confessed, staring into her lap. “Grunkle Stan told me ‘n Dipper on the first day. Only thing that’s changed is now I know why.”

 

“Oh,” said Pacifica. “And you’re not… you’re not mad at me?”

 

“Absolutely not,” was the reply. Pacifica sighed, rubbing at one eye tiredly.

 

“I just wanted somewhere where I could get away from them, you know?” she whispered. “And it turns out that they were always here anyway.” Mabel sighed, drawing her into a one armed hug. Pacifica closed her eyes, neither of them noticing the sun dipping underneath the horizon. They sat that way for a few more minutes, the shadows darkening and lengthening all around them. The silence was broken by Mabel’s stomach growling.

 

“Aw geez,” she said, coming back to herself and looking around. “Paz, we should get back. It’s late.”

 

“Huh?” Pacifica mumbled, lifting her head from Mabel’s shoulder. “Time’s it?”

 

“Late,” Mabel repeated, standing up. She dragged Pacifica to a standing position too. “After dinner, definitely.” She looked around, hands on her hips, as Paz shook herself back into alertness. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

 

“Uh. Yes?” said Pacifica hesitantly, turning in a circle. “We came from… that direction. Probably.” She pointed.

 

“If you’re sure…” Mabel said, shrugging. They didn’t really have much of a choice, and Pacifica’s memory and intuition was as close as they had to a guide. They started walking, occasionally making comments or telling quick stories to each other to pass the time. It was definitely more enjoyable than the walk out had been.

 

They were in the process of climbing over a huge fallen log when they saw it.

 

“And then he says, ‘No, Mabel, I can _totally_ get it this time, look, I did _math_ -’” Mabel was saying, but was cut off by a sharp shushing sound from Pacifica.

 

“Did you see that?” she hissed, crouching on top of the log and looking out into the darkness with narrowed eyes. Mabel was reminded of a cat or some other wild animal when it was spooked.

 

“What?”

 

“That thing, it just… There!” Pacifica exclaimed, leaning forward and pointing to the left. “Did you see it?”

 

Mabel shook her head. “Here, lemme get up there, too. I think the log is blocking it.” Paz waited patiently as she scrambled up onto the tree, digging her flats into the rotting bark and huffing. “How’d you make this look so _easy?”_

 

“Gymnastics lessons,” said Paz casually, eyes scanning the forest around them. “There it is!”

 

Mabel looked up just in time to see a dark shape dart through the trees on the other side of the log, closer than she’d been expecting. She yelped in a mix of fear and surprise, hoisting herself on top of the tree and looking around like Pacifica was doing. It wasn’t like they were in a clearing or anything- the trees came very close to the log, and any threats or attackers would be concealed until they were right on top of them. The log instantly became their home base, their island. Both of them were too scared to leave it and potentially confront whatever was in the forest, so they were stuck. They sat there for a few more minutes before it happened again.

 

“Hey!” shouted Mabel, standing up on the trunk. “Who are you? Show your face!”

 

_“Mabel,”_ Pacifica whispered-yelled, tugging her elbow. “What if it’s a bear?”

 

“Are there even bears in Oregon?” Mabel asked, turning to look down at her. Pacifica shrugged helplessly.

 

“Do you wanna find out firsthand?”

 

Mabel sighed and relented, sitting back to back on the log with Pacifica. She’d hardly gotten comfortable, however, when a voice echoed out of the forest, both too close for comfort and too far away all at once.

 

“What are you two doing all the way out here?” It was a sharp, giggly voice, as if the owner had a wide grin. Mabel and Pacifica leaped about a foot in the air, looking around wildly for the speaker. The forest was dark and silent. No birdsong.

 

_“Who are you?!”_ Pacifica shouted desperately, her hands shaking.

 

“Nobody. Everybody. Everything. The Universe and the Void itself.”

 

Mabel swallowed nervously. “What do you want?”

 

“I want you to leave. I want all of you to leave,” the voice said seriously. It was familiar, but Mabel couldn’t quite place it. “And I want that sweaty brother of yours to leave off with what he’s doing.”

 

“Hey! He’s not _that_ sweaty,” Mabel said, determined to defend Dipper’s honor even if he wasn’t there. “And if he was, the only person allowed to call him that is _me.”_

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Pacifica stammered, darting her eyes around the treeline. “You just want us,” -she pointed at herself and Mabel- “to leave.”

 

“That’s right, Blondie.” _Ugh, that voice is so familiar_ , Mabel thought in frustration. _Who IS it?!_

 

Pacifica reached down and subtly grabbed Mabel’s hand. “So you’ll let us go away? You just want us gone? That’s all?”

 

“Yep. Don’t see why all the clarification was necessary, but-”

 

“PACIFICA, IT’S BILL!” Mabel yelled at the exact same moment Pacifica screamed, “MABEL LET’S RUN!” and leaped off the log, dragging Mabel along by her hand. Mabel staggered to her feet and stumbled after Pacifica as fast as she could go, heart hammering along to the beat of _i_ _t’s Bill it’s Bill it’s Bill._ She looked behind her and saw a flash of bright blue through the trees, and felt a little sick.

 

“PAZ, RUN FASTER!” she called, and Pacifica grunted.

 

“I will if you do!”

 

Mabel saw another spark of blue fire, and ran faster.

 

They were diving through the trees with no hesitation, thorns and prickled and leaves snagging on their hair and clothes and skin. Every time they felt like they had to slow down or they’d collapse, they’d see another burst of flame and start sprinting again. It was only ten minutes tops, but to Mabel it felt like hours. Then, suddenly, they crashed through a bush, not even slowing down, and ran into something far more solid and less breakable.

  
“What _happened_ to you guys?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV SWITCHES AND MABIFICA UNDERTONES AND ALSO IM SORRY FOR THE WAIT IM SORRY I HAVE NO EXCUSE
> 
> AAAAAAAAA ALSO OTGW IS GETTING A COMIC BOOK SERIES???????? MORE STUFF FOR ME TO WRITE I GUess
> 
> love u guys. so much. tell me what u think of mabel in this chapter cos im not totally convinced i nailed it


	8. What Do We Do Now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica regroup and try to come up with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well....................im back.......im sorry for the absence but like dudes..i spent so long on that last chapter and like nobody commented!!!! what was w/ that??? i got kinda u know shot down idk. whatever im dumb. ALSO i changed my url visit me at ciphereye.tumblr.com for all new fun experiences
> 
> school sucks. only four days left and then im a junior hurrah aaaaaah
> 
> ALSO: at the beginning of this chapter mabel has a very small non explicit anxiety attack its not super yucky but if ur not havin a good day thats just a heads up

Mabel stood for a second, speechless, trying to get her thoughts in order to answer her brother’s question. Dipper was looking at her expectantly and she could feel her heart beating fast, too fast, everything was happening _too fast_ and-

 

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” Pacifica said, her tone clipped and impatient. She sounded like old-Pacifica, before she and Mabel had become friends. Mabel didn’t like old-Pacifica very much, but she wasn’t in much of a state to complain about it. There was a stitch in her side and she couldn’t really breathe right and her dumb heart was _not letting her calm down_ and where in the _heck_ was Bill? Hadn’t he been right behind them?

 

“Uh,” said Dipper eloquently, before shaking himself. “I mean, yeah, yeah, totally. Just- Mabel, are you okay?” She blinked at him and made a weak hand movement that she hoped said, _I’m fine, let’s go._ He still looked a little concerned, but there was nothing to be done about that. “How about your cabin?” Dipper suggested. Pacifica nodded. Mabel gave a thumbs up. She still hadn’t let go of Pacifica’s hand and she wasn’t about to, content to let herself be pulled along a haphazard route towards their cabin.

 

“Why don’t we just walk on the path?” Pacifica asked, wrinkling her nose as she stepped over a thornbush. “Don’t tell me _you’re_ lost out here, too.”

 

Dipper shook his head. “There’s some crazy all-camp game going on right now. The path is kind of an obvious place to be. We could get caught or something.” Pacifica groaned, throwing her head back a little bit.

 

“It’s not that dumb monster hunt game is it? I hate that thing. The counselors always get super into it and it never even matters because-” she cut herself off sharply, then took a deep breath and continued, “Because Bill always wins.” Mabel looked at her out of the corner of her eye. Pacifica walked a little faster. Dipper glanced between the two of them, his big brain (as much as Mabel would love to say that her brother was a big dumb-dumb, he _was_ pretty smart) putting the pieces together.

 

“Wait…,” he said slowly. “Were you guys with Bill? Were you running from Bill?!” Neither of them answered, and he took it for the confirmation that it was. He looked over his shoulder. “Oh my gosh.”

 

“We’ll tell you about it when we get to the cabin,” said Pacifica, biting her lip and glancing behind them as well. There was no blue fire in the distance, though and she relaxed the tiniest bit. Mabel could feel her heart slowly returning to a normal pace, and she let out a shaky breath. Dipper and Pacifica both looked at her.

 

“You alright?” asked Dipper at the same time Pacifica said, “Are you okay?” Mabel laughed a little bit.

 

“Geez guys, I’m fine! No need to be such worrywarts.”

 

The rest of the walk passed mostly in silence, with the occasional ‘look out’ or ‘watch it’ when there was something to be climbed over or pushed aside. Mabel was sure she had about twelve thousand new bug bites and maybe only five hundred new thorn scratches, but otherwise she was alright. She was calm.

 

The cabin was empty when they arrived, and the lights were out. Dipper pulled the chain on the ceiling light and it flickered on, a dim yellow glow flooding the room. Mabel and Pacifica realized at the same time that they were still clutching each other’s hands tightly and they quickly disentangled their fingers, flexing the stiff joints and wincing. They both flopped onto Pacifica’s bed, and after a second, Dipper joined them, sitting so that Mabel was in the center of the bed with the other two on each side.

 

“Spill,” was all he said, and Mabel huffed out a quiet laugh. He was talking like this was something casual, something _normal_ , like a sleepover or ‘truth or dare’.

 

“Well,” she said, smoothing her skirt over her knees, “We kinda… met Bill in the woods…”

 

“And?” prodded Dipper excitedly. “What happened? Was there demon powers and- and spells? Did he try to make a deal with you?”

 

“Dipper-”

 

“You didn’t do it, did you? Because that’s- that’s just a terrible idea, sis-”

 

“Dipper!” said Mabel more loudly, poking him in the side.

 

“Yeah?” he said, slowing down for a second to look at her.

 

“We didn’t make any deals with him. There was just… just a lot of fire and… you know, general demon stuff.” She quietly and quickly explained what had happened in the woods, leaving out the reason Pacifica had run off and the fact that she’d told the county fair _‘I-can-totally-win-that-prize-Mabel’_ story. Dipper listened intently, occasionally interrupting to ask for clarification or more details. If he’d had a notebook, he would have been scribbling down endless notes. Eventually, the story wound down, and Mabel shrugged a little bit. “...And that’s what happened.”

 

“What I don’t get, though,” said Dipper, laying on his back to look up at the roof of the bed, “Is why he didn’t hurt you guys. Like, if he was really a demon, I think he could have caught up with two twelve year olds. No offense.” They were all silent for a moment, thinking. Dipper stared up at the planks that Mabel’s mattress rested on above them. There was a bit of marker graffiti on one of them. WHY DOES NOBODY TALK TO CIRCLES? BECAUSE THERE IS NO POINT! He frowned, reminded too much of Bill’s weird shape posters.

 

“Scare tactics,” Pacifica blurted out suddenly. The other two looked at her. “They were scare tactics. He didn’t wanna hurt us, he wanted to freak us out so much that we’d do whatever he wanted.”

 

“And what he wanted was for us to leave!” Mabel exclaimed. “Which we did. So why did he chase us?”

 

“Maybe… maybe he didn’t just mean leave the _woods_ ,” said Pacifica hesitantly. “Maybe he meant leave the _camp_.” Mabel gasped, tapping the bed with her hand rapidly.

 

“Didn’t he say he wanted _all_ of us to leave?” she said excitedly. “All of us. Everyone in the camp. Why would he want that?”

 

Dipper sat up again, still frowning. “If the camp is within his territory, he might think it’s his right to make us get off it. I mean, assuming he’s super old and stuff, he could have been here for centuries- _we’re_ the trespassers.” He flopped back down on the mattress. “Ugh. This would be so much easier if I could get on the Internet, maybe find out what kind of demon he even _is_.”

 

Mabel sighed. “What are we even supposed to do? Go to Stan and be all like ‘Oh Stan thanks for letting us stay here on discount for the whole summer when your camp has no more money left, also you need to make everyone leave right now’? That’ll never work.” Pacifica nodded in commiseration.

 

Mabel threw an arm over her eyes, addressing the room blindly. “So we gotta make _Bill_ leave. Get Grunkle Stan to fire him, or something?”

 

“Nah, Stan would never go for that,” Pacifica said. “Bill is like, the best counselor he has. He’s got no reason to fire him.”

 

“I mean, if only we had some sort of _proof_ , then _maybe_ we could get Grunkle Stan to… I dunno. Help us, at least.”

 

Dipper gasped and sat straight up, banging his head on the top edge of the bed. _“OW!”_

 

“You okay, bro-bro?” Mabel asked, half amused and half actually concerned. Dipper hastily stood up, rubbing his forehead and wincing.

 

“Yeah, yeah I just- I just remembered what I wanted to show you before dinner!” He ran over to the door and yanked it open. A cool summer wind rushed through the room, and the smell of impending raid came with it.

 

“What?” said Mabel, standing up as well. “What were you gonna show me?”

 

“Proof!” Dipper called over his shoulder, already running through the woods. The first few drops of rain plunked down in the dry dust of the path, quickly turning into a deluge. In the distance, the cries of surprised campers caught out in the weather could be heard. “I’ll be right back!” Dipper shouted, and then the darkness and the rain swallowed him whole.

 

\---

 

_I’m not wearing the right shoes for this_ , Dipper thought offhandedly as his foot splashed down into another one of the puddles that were rapidly forming on the path. The rainwater soaked into his sock and filled his sneaker, the water squishing unpleasantly around his toes every time he put his foot down. _Yuck._ Water was dripping down into his eyes from the brim of his hat, limiting his visibility even more than the complete darkness did.

 

He had no idea how he was gonna find Cabin 3 in this mess, but he had to. Mabel and Pacifica had to see his video, had to see his proof. They could actually take Bill down with that video. It was crucial. He wiped water out of his eyes and sighed in frustration, stopping to stand in his rain filled shoes under some branches that looked more sturdy and rain-proof than the others. _Did I already pass it?_ he wondered to himself, looking around at all the trees.

 

He sighed again and moved to lean against the tree trunk behind him, but was surprised that instead of taking his weight easily, the tree trunk swung inward, and he toppled onto the floor backwards, all the air rushing out of him in a big _whoomf._

 

“Oh,” he remarked conversationally to the cabin. “So that’s where it is.”

 

Groaning a little bit and rubbing his elbow (in addition to the nice bruise that was forming on his head), Dipper stood up. At first glance, the cabin seemed to be empty. The only sounds were the steady hissing sound of rain outside and his own breathing. The light was off. He didn’t feel like swinging around in the darkness looking for the chain, so he left it and walked over to his bed, digging around in the mess of his duffle bag for the video camera.

 

It wasn’t there.

 

He frowned and turned the bag upside down. Socks and books and underwear fell out, but no video camera. No _any_ camera, actually. _Oh, wait. I put them under the bed, not in the bag_ , he thought, and took a deep breath to squish the panic blooming in his chest. Kneeling down on the floor next to the bed, he stuck an arm underneath and swung it around fruitlessly.

 

“Ugh, it must be further back there than I thought.”

 

Dipper lay down on the floor completely, pushing his upper body underneath the bed. It was incredibly dusty, and he fought the urge to sneeze. He’d just end up banging his head again. He could see pretty much nothing, but he reached his arms out anyway and tried to see if he could find anything. His hands hit what felt like a flip flop, a paperback book, a loose nail, and something smooth that skittered out from under his fingers before he could get a grip on it. He shuddered and wiped his hand on the front of his shirt. Still, after all that, no cameras.

 

The rain continued.

 

Admitting defeat, he crawled backwards from underneath the bed and stood up, brushing the dust off of his clothes and hair. Suddenly, he froze, a horrible thought creeping into his brain like cold water into socks. He leapt into action, shaking out his bedsheets and going through the duffle bag again to make sure he hadn’t missed them, but they were really not there. They weren’t with his stuff. Ergo, someone must have taken them. _Bill._

 

The rain outside got louder.

 

Slowly, he turned around to look at Bill’s bed, just a few feet away from him. He almost expected to see him sitting there, one eye glowing softly in the darkness, but the bed was empty. A neon yellow glowstick hung from a hook on the wall near the headboard, illuminating the ‘ICE-OSCELES’ poster faintly. The eye of the triangle seemed to look at Dipper knowingly, but he brushed it off as just a feeling. _It’s just a drawing. It can’t see you_. He knelt down beside the bed and looked underneath it, but there was just more darkness. He kept an ear out for the sounds of someone approaching the cabin, but it was hard to hear through all the rain, so he gave up and just ducked underneath the bed.

 

His hands brushed against a cardboard box and he grabbed it, scooting backwards to sit up and lean against the bedframe. It was a shoebox, slightly bigger than normal, and old. The cardboard was peeling and it looked like safety scissors could wreck the thing in about five seconds.

 

Dipper opened it. His video camera was inside, but so was a clip-on bow tie, a pocket watch (broken, hands stuck at midnight- or noon), a bottle of black nail polish, a bottle of yellow nail polish, and roughly thirty two human teeth.

 

Dipper dropped the box into his lap. It landed neatly, right-side up, and nothing spilled. He wrinkled up his nose and looked at the teeth, carefully picking up his video camera out of the debris. Some of the teeth had brown blood still crusted onto them.

 

“Ew,” he muttered, replacing the lid on the box and sliding it back underneath the bed. “Ew ew ew ew ew.”

 

The rain had faded to the slightest whisper against the trees.

 

Trying not to think about what he had just seen, Dipper tucked the camera in his pocket and headed back outside, hunching his shoulders up against the late-night chill. There were no more distant sounds from the other campers; either the game had ended or it was winding down significantly.

 

It only took a few minutes to get back to Cabin C, and for that Dipper was grateful. Even summer nights in Oregon could get cold. Pacifica and Mabel were waiting for him on Paz’s bed. Mabel was doodling a swirling design on Pacifica’s forearm, and neither of them were speaking. There was a pile of shredded white paper on the floor.

 

“Got it!” Dipper announced, startling them both. He held up the camera triumphantly and closed the door behind him.

 

“Oh, great!” said Mabel happily, scooting over so that he could have his old space back. “Hit us with it.”

 

“Right, okay, you guys are not gonna believe this,” he started, pressing the power button. The camera slowly turned on. “I mean, I didn’t at first, because it just seems so- oh no. No! No, no, no, no!”

 

The library was empty. No files left. Every single one had been deleted. The timer in the corner informed them all cheerily that they had one hour of memory space to use. Dipper groaned and covered his eyes with one hand.

 

“Bill must have deleted it all. How did I not think of that?! I mean, I found it under _his bed_ , oh gosh…” Mabel and Pacifica exchanged a look, and Mabel placed a hand on her brother’s back.

 

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “We’ll… we’ll find something else, okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Dipper sighed, looking up. “Yeah. But, like… this video was _huge_. It was proof. And it was better than anything else we could possibly get.”

 

Suddenly, they could hear heavy footsteps pounding up the path, coming towards the front door.

 

“Bill?” Pacifica whispered, her eyes wide. Dipper shook his head.

 

“No, he’d never let himself be heard like that,” he replied quietly, but he stuffed the camera into his pocket anyway, trying to look innocent. There was a second of tense apprehension before Wendy burst into the cabin, hair sopping wet and hanging around her face.

 

“Dudes, what are you doing in here?” she asked. “The game ended! Everyone’s having ice cream down at the dining hall.”

 

“ _Real_ ice cream?” Dipper said doubtfully, raising an eyebrow. “Stan shelled out enough cash for real, authentic ice cream for the whole camp?”

 

Wendy coughed a little bit. “Well…” They all laughed, the slightly tense atmosphere breaking.

 

“So who won the game?” asked Mabel curiously. Wendy shrugged.

 

“It ended with a ceasefire when it started to rain. Nobody wants to be running around the forest when it’s all wet and dark.”

 

“Very wise,” remarked Pacifica dryly, looking at the scratches on her’s and Mabel’s arms, and at Dipper’s wet clothes and hair. Uncomfortable with the attention, Dipper stood up and stretched a little bit, as if he’d been sitting down for a while.

 

“I’m gonna turn in. It’s been a long day.”

 

“Too right,” Wendy muttered flopping down onto her own bed. “Hey, give my brothers a couple of noogies from me, okay?”

 

Dipper laughed. “You got it. ‘Night Mabel. ‘Night Paz.”

 

“Don’t call me that!” she shouted after him, and he grinned, walking out into the mostly calm night. A few other campers were on the path too, walking towards their own cabins. He waved to a few of them, and they waved back.

 

After he had brushed his teeth and settled down into bed (Wendy’s brothers were snoring lumps all around him), he tucked the video camera under his pillow carefully, and lay down so that one hand covered it. He was not letting Bill take it back.

  
Now, or ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how during the AMA bill said that anything with his likeness was something he could see thru?? remember??? just wondering do u guys remember
> 
> *crack knuckles* *cracks neck* *cracks back* *cracks egg* next chapters gonna be Fucked Up ( maybe )
> 
> comment any thoughts?


	9. Fakeouts and Absolutely No Makeouts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill ain't called a dream demon for nothing, folks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [WARNING] this chapter deals with dreams and as such, it could possibly be triggering for my friends out there who deal with unreality and other such things. Proceed with caution, and if you just don't wanna deal with it at all, it starts getting a little nuts at the line "Almost before he knew it". Skip from there to the line "Whoa there Pine Tree!" and you should be good.

The next few days passed in a haze of paranoia and sleeplessness for Dipper. He spent the daytime hours skipping out on chores and swim class with Mabel and Pacifica, huddled in the back of an old shed or hiding in a cabin, discussing theories. It helped to have two extra brains and sets of eyes to figure things out with, and soon they had half-filled Dipper’s notebook with lists of things Bill had done, ideas on how to defeat him, and so on and so forth. It was nice.

 

Nighttime, however, was a totally different story.

 

Dipper could barely sleep. It had something to do with the weird state he got into when he’d gotten into a new project, combined with the constant paranoia of thinking that the second he closed his eyes, Bill would wake up or barge into the cabin and take the notebook, take the camera, destroy it all- and then maybe kill Dipper for good measure. He woke up several times every night, looking around himself and trying to remember the scraps of dreams that floated around his head, to no avail. He was constantly exhausted and spaced out, getting lost in his own thoughts.

 

Like now.

 

“Dipper?” Mabel’s voice shook him out of his own head and into the real world. He blinked at her, confused, and she looked concerned. “I said, did you ever figure out that weird code we found in the woods?”

 

“Hmm?” he said, still a little out of it. “Oh, yeah, no. I dunno. It seems like it’s pretty simple, but… yeah. Not yet.”

 

Pacifica leaned across the picnic table they were sitting at. “Weird code?”

 

“The code we found on the stump in the woods,” Mabel explained. “Oh, right, you weren’t there. It was wild!” As she launched into a long explanation, Dipper flipped to the notebook page where he’d scribbled down the letters.

 

BMXBZT XBUDIJOH

 

Pacifica stood up and crossed over to the other side of the table, reading the code over his shoulder and Mabel finished the story. Her eyes scanned it for a second, and then she sucked in a sharp breath.

 

“It’s a Caesar code, dummy,” she said, grabbing the notebook and pencil. “Looks like single shift to me. Easy.”

 

“What?” _She solved it? Just like that?_ He watched as she quickly scribbled down the code chart in the margin of the page, muttering under her breath. In a few seconds, she was moving on to decoding it. The pencil was flying across the page. Before long, she dropped the book on the table with a sigh.

 

“There’s your message.”

 

Dipper and Mabel looked at it.

 

ALWAYS WATCHING

 

Mabel wrinkled up her nose. “Yuck. That’s creepy.”

 

Dipper nodded. “But very Bill.”

 

“Where’d you learn how to decode stuff, Paz?” asked Mabel curiously, and Pacifica shrugged.

 

“I get bored sometimes, and my family has a _big_ library.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They all looked at the notebook for a few more seconds before Pacifica shook herself and stood up.

 

“Ugh, it’s getting late. C’mon Mabel, Wendy’s gonna be looking for us soon.” Mabel nodded and sighed. Before she stood up, she placed a hand on Dipper’s shoulder and shook him slightly, stopping him from falling asleep right there.

 

“Hey, get some sleep, okay bro-bro? Try not to eat your shirt.” She grinned at him, and he waved her off weakly.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, I’ll sleep tonight. If I can,” he assured her. She looked at him doubtfully, but before she could speak, Pacifica made an impatient noise.

 

“Let’s go, Mabel!”

 

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” she replied good-naturedly, and hopped off the bench. “Bye Dip-Dop!”

 

“Bye,” he said quietly, probably too quietly for her to hear. He looked at his notebook, frowning. _Always watching. Is that literal or metaphorical?,_ he wondered. _Does it mean he’s omniscient? Or just that he wants people to think he is?_ His mind spiraled down a long line of increasingly complicated and roundabout questions, fading into nothing as he dozed off. His head snapped up what felt like only a few seconds later as a loud Klaxon alarm sounded from the speaker on a pole right above his head. He looked around, realizing that he was the last kid outside, and that the sun had long set. _Yikes. I’m really out of it,_ he thought, and resolved not to bring the whole incident up to Mabel like, _ever_.

 

He stood up and grabbed his notebook, heading back to the cabin. An owl hooted somewhere in the forest, and he shivered. _Why am I always out in the forest at night?_ he thought, slightly annoyed. _Why does this keep happening?_ He hugged his vest closer to himself and kept walking. The trees around him looked washed-out in the moonlight, almost devoid of any color. The owl hooted again, and again, closer this time. Then, suddenly, it fell silent.

 

_Oh no._

 

Dipper wasn’t stupid. He could recognize a pattern, and he knew what was going on. He was alone in the woods at night, and the birds had gone silent to boot. That was never, _ever_ good. He tensed, waiting for Bill to make his entrance.

 

Nothing happened. There were no sounds in the forest, no voice calling out to Dipper with cryptic one-liners and annoying half-truths. After a few seconds of standing stock still, Dipper cautiously started forward again, only to stop when a flash of yellow far to the right caught his eye. He turned, ready to tell Bill that he was _really_ not in the mood right now, but the words died before they could be spoken.

 

There was a yellow triangle in the forest. It had one eye and two little black arms and two black legs, and it was floating parallel to him through the trees. It seemed to be unaware of him, and it stopped in front of a large pine tree. It pressed its hand into the bark, and when it removed it, the shape of a roughly carved eye looked out at the path (and, subsequently, Dipper).

 

“Wha-?” Dipper whispered, then clapped a hand over his own mouth in alarm, but it was too late. The triangle rotated in midair slowly, and saw him. Its single eye widened in surprise, and then it frowned, obviously confused. When it spoke, its voice was layered and discordant and very obviously powerful.

 

“ _ **W h a t  t h e  f u-**_ ”

 

There was a noise like a scratched record, and Dipper woke up. His neck ached as he lifted his head up from the picnic table where he’d dozed off. He scrunched up his nose, realizing that he probably had ink on his face from the notebook page stuck to his cheek. He looked around, and saw that it was barely dark. He could see a couple kids milling around, slowly moving back towards their respective cabins _. Huh. Just a weird dream._ He stood up from the table and began walking back towards Cabin 3. _For the second time,_ his brain told him, but he shook it off. It wasn’t his fault his dreams were so realistic.

 

The Corduroy brothers were in the cabin when he got there, but Bill was, as always, missing. Dipper didn’t really know where he went at night- he was just glad he didn’t have to sleep in the same room as the guy. Dipper flopped down onto his bed and then sighed quietly when he realized he hadn’t brushed his teeth. By the time he’d stumbled down to the bathrooms and back, the brothers had quieted down some, and it was easier to get to sleep.

 

He didn’t dream.

 

When he woke up the next morning, it was to golden sunlight flashing right into his eyes from the window. He groaned and threw an arm over his eyes, but it was no use. He couldn’t get back to sleep. He sat up. The other boys in the cabin were still snoring lumps under their blankets, with only tufts of bright red hair poking out. He quickly got dressed and went outside, figuring that he could probably wake Mabel and Pacifica up and force them to share his misfortune.

 

It was a perfect morning, not too cold, but not hot with the full force of the sun yet. Birds were singing in the woods, and he took comfort in that security. He kicked a rock between his feet as he walked down the path, still blinking blearily and yawning.

 

Cabin C was silent as he approached it, and he assumed that everyone inside was still asleep. He walked around to the window that was beside Mabel and Pacifica’s bunk bed and rapped on the old wooden frame.

 

“Paz? Mabel? Wake up!” He paused for a second, waiting, but there was no response. “Mabel?” he tried again, louder this time, but hopefully not loud enough to wake up anyone else inside the cabin. Still, nothing. “Alright, sleepyheads!” he called out. “I’m just gonna come in.”

 

He walked back around to the front door of the cabin and cautiously eased it open, checking that Wendy wasn’t awake to kick him out. Technically, boys weren’t allowed into girl’s cabins, but Wendy had never really enforced that rule, especially not with Dipper; However, he got the feeling that under these circumstances, she would. He looked around. Mabel was sprawled out on top of her covers, her body askew and her head almost hanging off of the edge of the bed. Pacifica was curled up in a ball in the corner of her mattress, blond hair spilling through the slats on the side on the bunk bed like a weird waterfall.

 

Dipper cleared his throat. Mabel’s face twitched, and Pacifica curled up tighter into her ball. Dipper coughed louder, and Mabel’s eyes cracked open just a little bit.

 

“Oh,” she said, and yawned. “What’s up, Dipper?”

 

“Finally!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “Jeez, I was beginning to think you were _dead._ ”

 

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Well, obviously I’m not. Although I’m not so sure about Pacifica.” She reached up and knocked against the underside of Pacifica’s bed. “Hey Paz! Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”

 

Pacifica sighed loudly and said, without looking up, “If this place serves us eggs, I’m going to suddenly and mysteriously go vegan.”

 

Mabel laughed a little bit and turned back to Dipper. “It’s gonna take her a while to get moving. Just meet us in front of the dining hall, okay?”

 

“Got it.” he nodded and backed out, heading back on the trail. The birds were still singing, and they were even louder than before. It was a little annoying, actually. The path was deserted. He kicked another rock.

 

Almost before he knew it, he had reached the dining hall. To his surprise, loud noises were coming from inside of it, as if the whole camp was inside having a meal. He jumped up the front steps and opened the door. His jaw dropped.

 

The whole camp was inside, and Mabel and Pacifica were, too, sitting at their usual table with Candy and Grenda. He blinked. _How did they all get past me?_ He’d been sure that it was early morning- too early for breakfast, and besides, he’d just woken Mabel and Pacifica up! They weren’t even dressed when he had left, but here they were. Pacifica’s hair was brushed and styled, and Mabel was wearing her llama hair sweater.

 

“Dipper!” Mabel called, waving him over. “ _There_ you are! We were worried you’d gotten lost!” He walked over and sat down next to her slowly.

 

“Mabel…,” he whispered. She leaned in closer to hear him, putting down the toast she was about to bite into. He took a breath. “How long has it been since we last saw each other?”

 

“Uh, like, forty-five minutes, maybe?” Mabel said, frowning. “You okay, bro-bro? You _did_ sleep last night, right?”

 

Dipper bit his lip. “I think so. Maybe it wasn’t as good of a sleep as I thought.” He cocked his head, frowning. Even over the din of the dining hall, the chirps and whistles of the birds outside was loud and as annoying as ever. “Can you hear those birds?” he asked Mabel.

 

“The birds always sing in the morning, Dipping Dot!” She grinned and pushed up the sleeve of her purple sweater so that it didn’t trail in the syrup on her plate.

 

_Wait. Purple sweater? Syrup?_ Dipper did a double take. Mabel’s cream colored llama sweater had become her purple ‘MABEL!’ sweater sometime in the past minute, and her toast had transfigured itself into a stack of burnt pancakes. He rubbed his eyes and pinched himself. The pinch didn’t hurt, and he could feel his breathing start to pick up.

 

“Bro-bro?” said Mabel curiously, pausing from where she had been eating her pancakes- wait, no, it was a bagel- wait, no, it was eggs- no- it was-

 

“Something’s wrong,” Dipper stammered, standing up from the table and looking around himself in confusion. Mabel looked at him, and her sweater was purple, then blue, then greenblackwhiteyellow, and he raised his hands to his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “Something’s wrong!”

 

“Dipper!” said Mabel, but it didn’t sound like her. It was an _approximation_ of Mabel; cheery, loud, enthusiastic. But it wasn’t her. “Dipper! Dipper! Dipper!”

 

“What’s going on?!” he shouted, gripping the edges of his hat.

 

“Dipper!”

 

“Stop it!”

 

“Dipper!”

 

He refused to open his eyes. He didn’t want to see what her sweater looked like now, or what kind of food she was eating. He didn’t want to see. He just wanted it stop. He just wanted to _wake up._

 

“Dipper!”

 

_Wake up._ His eyes flew open.

 

“I’m dreaming.”

 

“Dipp-” Mabel’s voice cut out mid word, and Dipper watched in horror but detached fascination as she froze, flickering where she stood like a computer glitch. He looked around. The dining hall was fading into shades of black and white, and before long, Dipper was the only thing with color as far as he could see. He stood for a moment, his breath coming fast, before he slowly inched towards the door, flinching every time a frozen, grayscale arm or leg touched him. They felt like cold air.

 

It was deserted outside of the dining hall, and Dipper wandered aimlessly. Sometimes he paused to kick a rock or pinch himself, but he stayed stubbornly stuck in whatever horrific lucid dream his brain had cooked up for him. Eventually, he found himself by Stan’s office-slash-house. Without thinking, he pushed open the door, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him from going in.

 

“Whoa there, Pine Tree!”

 

“Aaaah!” He whipped around in alarm, raising his arms to protect his face. Peeking through them, he saw the large, golden triangle that he’d seen in his last dream. It was floating in front of him, and it managed to give a strong impression of amusement, despite not having a mouth or, really, a face. Dipper frowned, connecting the _thing_ to the nickname it had used. “...Bill?”

 

“Bingo! Got it in one!” The triangle did a sort of backwards flip in the air and sighed happily. “Man, it has been _so long_ since I went incorporeal. You really start to miss some things!”

 

Dipper backed up a few steps, inching towards the entrance to the house. “What are you doing here? And why do you look like... _that?_ ”

 

“Yikes! That's a little rude, don't you think? The question is, kiddo, what are _you_ doing here?” Bill matched him step for floating step. “I mean, I admit, I _did_ set up that little shindig at the dining hall, but I didn’t expect you to turn the whole shebang _lucid_ , for crying out loud!” He giggled a little bit.

 

“That was _you?!_ ” Dipper spluttered. “But how?”

 

Bill laughed again and pointed to himself. “Dream demon! But seriously, kid, how’d you know?”

 

_So that’s what he is._ “I…” Dipper considered lying, but it didn’t really seem to matter. “Mabel’s sweater kept changing. And the timing for things was all wrong.”

 

“Damn,” said Bill quietly. “I’m off my game.”He pulled a cane out of midair and leaned on it, adopting an almost nostalgic tone. “I tell ya kid, back in the day… whoo! I could make the more literal, serious person on earth believe anything I fed ‘em. That was _real_ power.” He looked off into the distance. “Now I’m stuck with… all _this._ ” He swept out one arm to encompass everything that surrounded them. “A tiny, podunk corner of the Mindscape- _MY_ Mindscape. Yeesh. It’s a real crime, I’m tellin’ ya.” He sighed, and seemed to be waiting for Dipper to respond.

 

“That’s… too bad?” he tried hesitantly, even though he’d understood about fifteen percent of what Bill had said.

 

“You’re damn right it’s too bad!” the demon replied, then produced a pocket watch out of nowhere. “Oops. Gotta bounce, Pine Tree, or I’ll be late for my meeting.”

 

“Your meeting? With who?” Bill leaned closer, and Dipper got the impression that if he’d had a mouth, he’d be grinning.

 

“My boss.”

 

Dipper woke up in his bed. It was raining, and as he opened his eyes, lightning flashed across the cabin, followed swiftly by thunder. Quickly, he grabbed his notebook and scribbled down the important information from the dream, keeping one eye on the door to check that Bill wasn't going to suddenly appear. Finishing on the double-underlined word 'BOSS?', he snapped the notebook closed and slid it underneath his pillow next to the video camera. He sighed, laying back down, and pulled his blanket up over his head. _Once again, more questions than answers._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one's a little short and that it's so late!!!! i had finals and then regents (basically finals on crack for my out of staters) and i literally havent gotten a second to myself to write. but im back now! (idk for how long tho;; summer is gonna be complicated! im going way out of the wifi zone for like 2 weeks and then im gonna be a CIT at a REAL SUMMER CAMP, AS SEEN IN THIS FIC) 
> 
> love u all! comment any thoughts?


	10. Business Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited meeting, and a fair bit of backstory.

When it came to matters of Business (capital B), Bill always thought it best to lead with the thing you were least likely to get. Which is why, as soon as he’d kicked that sweaty meatbag Dipper out of the ‘Scape and made it to his meeting ( _just_ in time, thank you), he said, “I want a raise.”

“I don’t even pay you.”

“Not in _money_ , genius. Gross.”

“So what _do_ you want?”

“More freedom,” the triangle said. “Give me more elbow room!”

“Are you serious? You think I’m some kinda idiot? Wait, don’t answer that.”

“So that’s a no?” Figures. Humans were _so_ predictable.

“You’re damn right it’s a no. Anything else?”

Bill thought. “Hmm. I had something else, but your unexpected rejection of my request made me forget!”

“Great. Could you please leave? I’m workin’ on something here.”

“ _WAIT!_ ” Bill suddenly screamed, throwing out a hand. “ _I_ _REMEMBERED_!”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, you know that kid? In my cabin? Kinda sweaty and… short.” Bill looked up at the ceiling and made like he was squinting at it, deep in thought. “Can’t _quite_ remember his name though…”

“Cut the crap, Cipher.”

“Oh- I know!” He snapped his fingers. “Dipper Pines!” He leaned back on a summoned cane, real casual like. No reason to let on any… concern about the situation. But he was _contractually_ _obligated_ to give the news anyway. “Uh, yeah he… kinda broke into the Mindscape. Just now.” He looked at his nonexistent nails.

“What?!”

Hmm. _So much for nonchalance_. “Relax! It’s really no big deal! I kicked him out pretty quick, bundled him off into a nice little dream…” Oh, right, he should probably mention- “And then he broke out and came back.”

“Are you fucking with me right now.” Total deadpan. Not a question.

“Uh. No. But!” he said, before the other person could speak, “Don’t worry about it! It’s seriously no big deal. But, ya know, with the stress of the summer and all… the borders of my limited domain are pretty weak. Hence, the raise.” He paused. “Also, that kid has a bit of an aptitude for magic- he’d be pretty powerful if he ever wanted to study! Kinda reminds me of ANOTHER big-brained flashsack I used to know!”

“Shut up.” _Oooh, deflection._ “You’ve got this covered, right? I don’t need to babysit you on this?”

“You got it, boss! And ya know, this whole incident kinda lends some weight to what I’ve been saying for, I dunno, the last thirty years?”

“Oh, great. Not this again.”

“Yes this again!” He twirled the cane.

“I’m not listening. Go away.”

“C’mon!” Never let it be said that Bill Cipher wasn’t persistent.

“You really must think I’m stupid! Do you seriously think that I’d ever- _ever_ \- negate that spell?”

_Oh well._ “Eh, it was worth a shot.”

“Are we done yet?”

“Guess so, old timer!”

“Great.” The wheels on the bottom of the chair squeaked as it was pushed forward. Papers rustled, and the demon was pointedly ignored. Bill narrowed his single eye, tapping the top of the desk absentmindedly.

“You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” he asked suddenly. There was silence. He started to laugh. “Ha! You really don’t! You stupid little-”

“I’m gonna wake up now. Nice chat, you piece of hellspawn.” The papers crinkled in clenched fists, but the tone of voice stayed conversational and light.

Bill stayed silent for a moment, then decided to press on. “I can help you, Stanley. One little deal- I can find what you need. Won’t be hard!”

Stanley Pines slammed down the packet of paperwork he was going through. “If you think I’m gonna-”

“-One little handshake!”

“-anywhere NEAR _anything_ involved with this-”

“-it would only take a second!-”

“ _Enough_.” Stan stood up. “Seriously. Get out. Unless I have to bust out the chalk and banish you myself.”

Bill promptly started for the door.

“You’re making a mistake, Stan,” he said quietly, hand on the grayscale doorknob.

“You say that every time,” Stan muttered. For the first time during the conversation, Bill sensed a momentary weakness.

“Hey, I wonder what you brother’s doing right now!”

“Good NIGHT.” Guess not. The world slammed back into color as Stan pulled himself awake, the grayscale dissipating and taking Bill with it.

\-------                 --------

      THIRTY YEARS AGO

\-------                 --------

“Stanford! Come back! I didn’t mean it!” Stanley slammed his hands onto the metal of the portal again and again until they were almost bleeding- and then, until they did. It was no use. The portal was dead, and Stanford might be too.

Oh, god. Stanford. He hadn’t seen him in so long- more than a third of his whole life had been spent without his own twin brother. How long do you have to spend apart before even your own sibling is a stranger?

The answer was ten years.

He’d like to have been able to say that Stanford had looked well, but the fact was that he really, _really_ hadn’t. He’d been thin, even thinner than he’d been back in high school, and he’d had some major five o’clock shadow. But even setting aside all the physical things, Stanford had given off a seriously unhealthy vibe. It was something in the way his eyes darted around the room, bloodshot and paranoid. How desperate he’d been that Stan take the book away.

Stanley had seen people that looked like that before. Guys in prison, people out on the street (the few times he’d been forced to sleep there). People whose hands shook and whose arms crawled with track marks. People who, whether willingly or unwillingly, were going cold turkey from something that they had been hooked on for a long time.

Crack, heroin, alcohol- somehow Stanley sensed that the usual suspects weren’t the culprits with his brother.

_Whatever. Doesn’t matter._ He pulled at the lever for maybe the fiftieth time that hour. _Bring him b ack, then deal with whatever else he’s got going on._

__

But the lever didn’t budge (again) and the fuel gauge remained stubbornly at zero.

That first night was the worst. The house was old and creaky, and the skulls and various pickled eyes around the house (and around Stanford’s _room_ , geez, that’s weird) seemed to be looking at him all the time, even though though they were very, very dead.

The next morning Stanley got up early (could he say ‘got up’ if he didn’t sleep?) and stumbled into the kitchen. The fridge was full of stuff that he really didn’t think he actually _could_ eat, but the pantry and cupboards had enough nonperishables to last him at least a week. There was also a phone number scribbled on some notebook paper and taped to the fridge, labeled just as ‘FM HOME’. _Who’s that?_ he thought, tearing it down. _Friend? Co-worker? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?_ Not that he could really imagine Stanford actually _dating,_ but hey- it had been ten years, after all. Did he really know his brother anymore?

He called the number. The answering machine picked up.

“ _Hello, this is Doctor Fiddleford Hadron Mcgucket. If this is Stanford calling I’m probably still in the house and you forgot I was here- come out of the basement for a change! If you’re not Ford leave a message-BEEP,_ ” said some guy with a thick Southern accent at lightning speed on the recording. Stanley frowned at the receiver in his hand, but decided to hang up without leaving a message. _Weird._ But it did make sense after all- Stanford, for all his brains, couldn’t have built that huge portal thing on his own. _Maybe this guy can help me fix it?_ He tried to call again, but was just hit with the answering machine. On the third try, someone picked up.

“Hello?” Stanley asked.

“Uh… who is this?” said a little boy’s voice on the other side of the line.

“Stan Pines,” Stanley said without thinking of clarifying, and the kid shouted it over his shoulder.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaad!” he yelled after another couple seconds with no response. Then, “...You sure?” Then he sighed and spoke directly into the phone again. “Dad says he doesn’t wanna talk t’ you. He says you know what he’s talkin’ about and that you got a lotta nerve. Bye.” Click. Stanley made a face at the dead phone receiver. No help was coming from this Fiddleford guy, for whatever reason.

He sat down at the table and opened up the stupid journal again. He’d already scanned it last night, and felt another flare of frustration as he thought of the ‘continued in Journal 2’ note in the back. _Ugh, Stanford. Can’t you make anything easy?_ He flipped through it more slowly this time. Maybe there was something- _anything_ \- that he could use. His eyes landed on a page dated from several years ago- maybe one of the first his brother had ever made.

HELPFUL SPIRIT SUMMONING AND BINDING SPELLS

Huh. That sounded useful. And while Stanley wasn’t exactly the biggest believer out there, there had been an actual, real portal into another dimension. Why couldn’t this be real too? He looked at one that Stanford had circled in bright red pen. _MORE ON THIS ENTITY IN JOURNAL 3!_ read the note next to it. _BEST,_ promised another scribble. _MORE POWERFUL THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT_ , was yet another addendum, but there was nothing explicitly telling Stanley not to summon it. Plus, he _wanted_ power, right? Anything that could help bring Stanford back.

The summoning was simple. A few words, some symbols drawn in chalk on the floor. The only slightly complicated thing was finding a picture to put in the middle on the circle. _Draw an X to hurt and a circle to help!_ Stanford’s notes recommended. _Information repeated in Journal 2 as a safeguard._ Stanley was at a loss about the vague instructions for a moment, but settled on pulling out his old snapshot of him and Stanford at boxing class, and drawing one circle around both of their heads. _That should work._ He rubbed at his shoulder absently. He’d cleaned and bandaged the wounds as best he could, but it looked like they were gonna scar.

The words were easier to say than he’d expected. They looked like a bunch of gibberish, but as soon as he started saying them, they poured out like water, easy as pie. He started to feel nauseous and a little headache-y, and it got hard to breathe around the words.

The colors faded out of everything, and his vision whited out for a couple of seconds. Someone was laughing.

“Aw man!” said a voice he didn’t recognize, but assumed belonged to the ‘helpful spirit’. “Miss me already, Fordsie?” Stanley barely registered the words, and didn’t reply. He was blinking furiously, trying to get his eyesight back. “Yikes!” continued the spirit. “You’re lookin’ a little worse for wear there bud!” Still breathless, Stanley held up one hand in an almost forgotten gesture that he’d used a lot when they were kids, before the differences between him and Stanford had gotten more pronounced. _Look_ , said his raised hand. _I’m not who you’re looking for. I’m the five-fingered one._

__

“Whoa,” said the voice. “Either you lost a finger or… you’re the brother!” Stanley blinked up at the dim, blurry yellow shape in front of him. _Oh_. For some reason, he’d assumed that the spirit would at least look human. “Oh man, this is fantastic!” said the shape. “Fordsie was starting to get so boring, you know? Hardly ever cried anymore!”

Stanley was starting to get a slight feeling of foreboding.

“Anyway,” said the thing that Stanley was starting to realize was a floating, one-eyed triangle, “Let’s get started. What’s your M.O, huh?”

“What?”

“Spiders? Guns? Snakes? For your brother it was his dad, _ha!_ So unoriginal.” The thing somehow managed to make a disappointed tongue-clicking sound, despite not having one.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” said Stanley flatly. None of this was going the way he planned.

“Nightmares, buddy! That’s the name of the game from here on out!”

Stanley shook his head. “No, look, there must be a mistake- I… the book said _helpful spirit,_ not-”

“Destructive dream demon?” the thing- demon- finished. “Bill Cipher, at your service. I think you’ll find that Fordsie got a couple’a things _wrong_. He tends to mislabel.”

“Tended,” corrected Stanley dully. “Past tense.”

“ _HE’S DEAD?!_ ” shrieked Bill. “Honestly, I take my eye off the guy for ONE SECOND-”

“Not _dead_ \- I hope,” Stanley interrupted. “That’s actually why I wanted to- to ask for your help.” He scuffed at the floorboard with his foot unintentionally. “He- there was… There was this. Portal thing. I guess. And we were fighting and he kinda- He.” Stanley paused, tapping his fingers against the sides of his legs. “He kinda fell in? And I want you to get him out.”

“He completed it?” the demon almost whispered, it’s one eye wide, suddenly serious. “And it _works?!_ ”

“Not anymore. It’s broken,” Stanley said, and shrugged, a little annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken. “Is it important that he made it? The point is that he’s gone.”

“‘Is it important’,” Bill mocked, his eye starting to glow red. “ _IS IT IMPORTANT?! YOUR PUNY WRINKLY GRAPE OF A BRAIN CAN’T EVEN COMPREHEND HOW HUGE THIS IS_.” He was changing color and size, getting bigger and angrier. Stanley backed up nervously. _It’s okay. It has to stay in the circle, right? Is that- is that a thing?_

It was not, apparently, a thing. The triangle moved forward, over the circle line, pulsing scarlet. Fire was in it’s hands.

“ _ENOUGH GAMES,_ ” it said. “ _THE ONE I NEEDED IS GONE. WHAT’S THE POINT IN HAVING A SPARE?_ ” It raised a hand, and Stanley was sure it was about to wipe him off the map, when it froze, and pulled the hand back a little. Then it raised the arm again. And froze. And pulled it back. “ _WHAT DID YOU DO? WHY CAN’T I-_ ” Abruptly, Bill shrunk himself down and started patting himself and looking all around. “Where is it, where is it- _ugh_. There it is.” He looked down at, from Stanley’s perspective, his lower-right corner. A very small, faintly glowing red symbol was there. It was obviously not supposed to be.

“I- What?” Stanley stuttered.

“You bound me, you idiot!” Bill cried, rubbing at the spot furiously. It didn’t budge. “Perfect. Perfect!”

“I _bound_ you?”

“Yes! With the summoning spell! UGH. Did Ford give you that spell?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Ugh, _figures_. Dumb idiot never _used_ that spell, at least not on me. Can’t believe it even _worked_ …” He trailed off, muttering to himself. Stanley noticed that the red symbol was the same one that had been burned into his shoulder just yesterday- sort of squiggly and wiggly and angular all at once. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“So…” said Stanley cautiously. “What does that… mean?”

“It means, you dumb bloodbag, that until you lift this spell, we’re stuck together. Forever.” The triangle sighed and began to look supremely bored. “So just, like, lift the spell, and I can leave.”

Stanley narrowed his eyes. He might not know a lot about spellwork and demons and whatever other shit populated this world he had stumbled into- his brother’s world- but he did know that when there’s a wasp in the room, you try to keep it in sight. No telling what this thing could get up to if he set it free. No telling what it had _already_ done- to Stanford especially. He slowly started shaking his head.

“No. You’re staying here.”

The triangle’s eye widened. “ _WHY YOU LITTLE-_ ”

Stanley forced a grin, starting to find his footing. “Yeah, yeah, three-point, we’ve been through this already. Now. Seems to me like I’ve got the upper hand here, yeah?” The demon’s silence was answer enough. “Great. Ground rules. Uh…” He looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Don’t go more than… hmm. Two miles in any direction. In any plane. Or dimension thingy. Got it?” A single angry red pulse from Bill was all he got. “Don’t kill people. Don’t hurt people. Don’t. You know.”

“Don’t be a demon?” asked Bill sarcastically.

“Yeah, that!”

“I hate you.”

Stanley shrugged. “I’m not really bothered by that. Anyway. Can you fix that portal?”

“No.”

“Wait- _no?_ Why not?!” Stanley cried.

Bill shrugged. “I’m all-knowing, yeah, but there’s enchantments all over this house. It’s a miracle I can even see _you_ in all this magical gloom. Honestly, without full blueprints of that thing, you’re out of luck.”

“Great,” Stanley muttered, then clapped his hands together. “I’m gonna eat lunch. Want anything?”

“I’m a demonic entity from a higher level of existence with powers you can never dream of, created in a time when there was no such thing as human thought.”

“Got it.”

And so it went. Stanley would wake up, eat a can of beans or whatever else he could find in Stanford’s rapidly emptying kitchen, and spend the whole day down in the basement alone. He tried to bring Bill down there, as an extra pair of hands if nothing else, but the triangle was blocked by a complex array of protection spells- relatively new ones.

“Huh. Musta put these up in the last couple of days,” he said, hovering in front of the entry to the hallway. _Around the time he sent me that postcard,_ Stanley thought.

“Well, if Stanford didn’t want you in there, he must have had a reason,” Stanley said testily. He still didn’t know _exactly_ what Bill had done to his brother- but he knew it hadn’t been good. Honestly, he was always a few words away from punching the triangle.

"You know," said Bill conversationally, "I could probably get enough power to break the spells."

 

"Really? How?"

 

"If you made a deal with me."

 

Stanley barked out a sharp laugh. "You're joking! Like I would  _ever_ deal with you, Cipher."

 

"You'll want it one day, kid." Sometimes Bill was creepy like that. Like he knew what was gonna happen, years down the road.

 

It didn’t matter. He’d fix the portal soon and then Stanford would come back and they’d figure out what to do about Bill together. It would be fine. Just a few more days.

Except then it was a week later, they were out of food, and the portal was still broken. So Stanley went to the grocery store. And somehow introduced himself as Stanford Pines, and brought ten paying customers ( _PAYING CUSTOMERS_ ) back to the house. Bill was nowhere to be seen during the tour- thank God. He appeared almost before the last one (a pretty lady named Susan and yeesh, did he ever feel bad about that eye) had left.

“What was that all about?”

“Gotta make money somehow,” Stanley said, shrugging and counting up the dough. _Ten times fifteen equals… a whole lot more than I had two hours ago._ He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. Money! God, he loved it. Honestly, if he could keep this going, maybe spruce up the place a little… well, Stanford would forgive him any liberties he took with the house, right? It was all for a good cause. It was just a house. And it was only for a few more days.

Except that it wasn’t. Days stretched into weeks. Into months.

“What should I call it?” he asked Bill one night in June, stacking up the day’s earnings.

“What?” the triangle looked up from something that looked like a tesseract floating between his hands.

Stan rolled his eyes. “The house.”

“Can’t you just call it a house?”

“Nah. People want a catchy name. Like the _Sham Total_. And the _Rip Off_.”

“I can’t imagine that those were big sellers.” Bill looked back at the tesseract.

It ended up being called the Murder Hut, but then attendance dipped (“Told ya so,” said Bill) and he changed it to Mystery Shack. That one stuck.

It had been six months, Stanley could probably get certified as an engineer if he ever wanted to, and the portal was _still. Fucking. Broken._

“Do you do any programs for kids?” a harried looking mother asked him one day, three puffy haired triplets hanging on her arms.

“Uh… yeah!” he said quickly, and soon the Mystery Shack Mystery AfterSchool Program™ was born. And _that_ quickly got tacked onto a full on summer camp within a year; the exhausted parents of Gravity Falls (and a little bit beyond) were all thrilled to finally have some place to put their kids that wasn’t the backyard- and Stan worked Sundays, too.

Bill wasn’t pleased, but who cared about that? Stanley was practically rolling in cash. The portal was still pretty busted, but it wasn’t as busted as it had been. Stan counted that as progress.

After a couple of years, Bill’s griping about the constant stream of kids in and out ground Stan’s nerves to the breaking point.

“Get out of here if you hate ‘em so much,” he snapped, adjusting his fez in the mirror.

“ _I can’t_ ,” Bill hissed, tossing a tiny fireball in between his hands. Stan wasn’t phased.

“Go find yourself a body. You’re a counselor now. Congratulations.” He tightened his tie and started for the door. “Been meaning to build a new cabin anyways.”

“I hate you so much.”

“The feeling’s mutual, pal.”

Bill found a body. He said it had belonged to a brain dead patient- he hadn’t stolen the body from any soul. Stanley had no choice but to believe him.

He kept working on the portal. His hair was gray now (and wasn’t that weird) and his joints hurt and sometimes his knee froze up funny and wouldn’t bend (though he suspected that was from that time he’d got beaten up in Colombia back in ‘79), but he never slowed down working. The simple fact of the matter was, however, that he couldn’t complete the damn thing without the information in the other journals. He’d sent Bill out looking a couple of times, but the hiding spots must have been heavily enchanted, since the demon could find absolutely nothing. He’d even gone looking himself, but no dice.

Whatever. He’d get it eventually.

In September of 2011 he got a call from the Northwests- pretty unusual, even though they’d been funding him for a couple of years now. But apparently no longer. With the removal of Pacifica, the Northwests were cutting off the money completely. That was a heavy blow. He wasn’t worried for himself, of course. He knew he could always support at least himself. He had lots of alternate ways of making money (although selling the land to the Gleefuls was almost laughably out of the question)- he was just worried for the kids, like Pacifica, and others, who were losing the safe space and freedom the camp had given them.

Still. The portal came first.

And then the twins showed up. It kind of hurt, looking at how well they worked together. It reminded him of how he and Stanford had been at that age, and made him wonder if Dipper and Mabel would ever get to that point- if they would ever find themselves where he was now. Dipper reminded him so clearly of Stanford, and Mabel was a lot like himself. He just hoped that the parallels would never go any farther.

God, he hoped.

\------                                                                                         ------

PRESENT, 2.7 SECONDS AFTER RESOLUTION OF MEETING

\------                                                                                         ------

Stanley sighed and punched in the coded for the vending machine. It swung open with a hiss. He grabbed the spare lantern from just inside and lit it from a matchbook in his pocket, closing the camouflaged door behind him.

Down in the control room, he flicked a couple of switches halfheartedly, but everything in the portal room remained stubbornly off, as it had for thirty years. He glanced at the picture of Dipper and Mabel that their parents had sent him (and every member of the extended family) at the twins’ twelfth birthday party last year.

He plopped down in the chair, turning the pages of his one and only journal.

 **  
** “Where are the others?” he muttered, but, as always, recieved no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh god oh god im so sorry im so sorry that its been MONTHS since my last update i know how pissed yall must be at me wtf uhhh ok at first my excuse was that i needed to see how tale of two stans went cos as you can see that factors pretty heavily into the story. and then i was at camp. and then i was in ethiopia!!!!!! and didnt have my computer. and i know thats still not a good excuse but yeah im sorry 
> 
> also you may notice that we now have an estimation of how many chapter are left! it may be off by one or two, but yeah, that's the guesstimate lmao
> 
> oh yikes im gonna be a junior soon. in the ib programme. so. heads up im not sure how Consistent i can stay/ yes i know i am the worst fic author ever yes i realize im terrible ahah
> 
> youre all so lovely and patient and that is why this chapter is a little bit longer! (nearly 4000 words instead of 3000!)
> 
> LOVE YOU GUYS

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to daveyjackobs on tumblr for providing the triangle puns
> 
> im ciphereye on tumblr and you should come talk to me.


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